I was the ‘bunny boiler’

Former Act MP, Deborah Coddington (below) was the first person to make headlines in the

Herald on Sunday on October 3, 2004 after business boss Roger

Kerr pursued her through the grounds of Parliament.

She was engaged to Colin Carruthers, QC, at the time and resigned not long after and moved to Martinborough, where she runs a bookshop.

“It was curtains for me. I felt as a woman I couldn’t be taken seriously... It was so embarrassing. I was a product of the time and seen as a hysterical bunny boiler. These days you would call it victim shaming.” Coddington was reluctant to elaborate about her relationship with Kerr — who died in 2011, aged 66, after a battle with cancer — saying they were “very good friends”. “When you make the headlines members of your party will loathe you because the media attention is on you and nothing to do with policies or politics. They will want to take you out quietly and kill you and when they have finished, your children will want to kill you for humiliating them.”

She has no regrets leaving her politics.

- Carolyne Meng-Yee