Standing by her man

Colourful MP Deborah Coddington has never been averse to publicity. But things have changed. EUGENE BINGHAM looks at her troubles.

For more than 25 years, Deborah Coddington has stood by her man. Through thick and thin, Coddington not only supported her partner, Alister Taylor, she played an active part in his businesses, and was a director and co-owner of his companies.

Now, following her change in career, the Act MP is keen to distance herself from any connection with Taylor's publishing interests.

After the Weekend Herald last week detailed Companies Office records linking her to Taylor's companies, Coddington and Act spin-doctor Alan Hitchens demanded a retraction and apology.

The story, she said, had caused her distress and embarrassment.

When news broke of Taylor's latest tangle with consumer enforcement authorities - the New South Wales Commissioner for Fair Trading has filed court injunctions against him over the alleged late and non-delivery of books - Coddington issued a statement saying, "I am not connected in any way with the businesses associated with Alister Taylor. I will not be commenting further on the matter."

What upset Coddington was that the Weekend Herald published details of records showing that she maintained an interest in one company, and that, as far as the Companies Office records were concerned, she was a shareholder in three other businesses until January this year.

She sent the newspaper documents which showed that in September 2000 she transferred her shares in Taylor's companies. However, records filed with the Companies Office after that date continued to list her as the shareholder.

Is that a problem? Under the Companies Act, businesses are required to file accurate records, and there are provisions for penalties if it can be proved that false records have been deliberately provided.

According to the Companies Office, the cases where wrong details are filed are usually clerical errors, rather than deliberate attempts to mislead. Taylor says it was his error but it remains true it would not have been to the company's disadvantage to continue to be associated with a prominent journalist and, as of last year, MP and consumer affairs spokeswoman.

Coddington, who celebrated her 50th birthday last year at a swanky party attended by a society who's who, has been a figure of controversy in her own right and through association with Taylor, 60.

The couple got together in the late 1970s when Taylor was something of a cultural icon, a celebrated publisher famous for such controversial output as The Little Red Schoolbook and Tim Shadbolt's Bullshit and Jellybeans.

Having married young and given birth to a daughter, Briar, Coddington left her husband and later joined Taylor on his property at Martinborough in the Wairarapa.

Stories about the couple in Metro and North & South magazines, where Coddington made her name as a campaigning journalist, describe those opulent days at Martinborough. Surrounded by friends, they ate good food, drank good wine and drove matching Mercedes cars. Coddington threw herself at the business as much as Taylor. But the high life they enjoyed did not go down well with the mounting number of people owed money through their enterprises.

In 1985, by which time the couple had moved to Russell in the Far North, Taylor's known debts added up to about $1.8 million. He was declared bankrupt.

Rumours swirled that the couple would break up, stories in part stirred along by Taylor, who told a creditors' meeting that the couple were no longer together. It had become an issue at the meeting because Coddington was listed as one of Taylor's major creditors, giving her more votes than many of the 113 others he owed money.

Whether the couple did actually split at the time, or whether it had simply been a convenient thing to tell the creditors is unclear. Certainly, in a North & South profile this year, Coddington was firm. "When he went bankrupt and we moved to Russell everyone said, 'She'll leave him, she won't be able to do without her Charles Jourdan shoes and her Guerlain perfume'," she said. "Well, I didn't."

Instead, the couple threw themselves into running a restaurant and cafe in Russell. But after about five years, Coddington took up journalism, and Taylor went back to publishing, and landed back in hot water.

Reed Publishing, which had published Who's Who in New Zealand since 1908, launched court action after Taylor began work on a similar publication. The parties eventually settled out of court and Taylor was allowed to carry on, his version carrying the title New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa.

More than a decade after that battle, the editor of Reed's version, Max Lambert, remains worked up about what happened. "Even his use of the name the parties agreed to caused utter confusion and I had people contact me from all over New Zealand, saying, in effect, 'What the hell is going on?'." After Reed's book was published, Taylor began photocopying entries from it of people he did not have in his volume and sent them out asking for updates. That also created confusion," says Lambert.

Lambert says there is no confusion over who was involved. "Coddington was very much a part of the Taylor organisation," he says.

Indeed, in various Taylor books, Coddington features in the credits. She has also been on board as a shareholder and director of Taylor's companies, including Roger Jamieson Ltd (previously known as New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa Ltd), New Zealand Who's Who Publications Ltd, Waiura Holdings, and Roll of Honour Publications. And, of course, Taylor has published three of Coddington's own books - two editions of The New Zealand Paedophile and Sex Offender Index, and Let Parents Choose.

The depth of public reaction to the 1996 edition of the sex offender index caught Coddington by surprise. With the praise came abuse and death threats.

Around the same time, storms began brewing around the publishing businesses on both sides of the Tasman. In Australia, Taylor was the director of a company called Roll of Honour Publications Pty. According to documents obtained by the Weekend Herald, Coddington was the company's owner. It was not a happy workplace. Employees complained about the conditions and not being paid.

One former employee, Graham Sawyer, launched proceedings in the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court of New South Wales. In February, 1998, the court ordered the company to pay Sawyer more than $1600 for unpaid notice. Sawyer has never seen a cent. "As the owner of the company, I consider that [Coddington] owes me this money," says Sawyer.

Four years later, Bernard Moore, another former employee, took employment court action against New Zealand Who's Who Publications, but he too has not received his court-ordered payment.

But complaints from former employees were the least of the problems for publisher Taylor. From the late 1990s, a pattern of complaints began to emerge from customers saying books they had ordered were not arriving. Since his return from Russell, Taylor had specialised in vanity publications such as the who's who series.

The company approaches people to ask if they are interested in being included in the book. They are invited to send in their biographical details, and are given the opportunity to order a copy of the book for a special pre-publication price. In other words, the money starts rolling in before a page of the book is printed.

In Australia, the New South Wales fair trading authorities began warning people off the venture, and they were not alone. British authorities warned about problems with the delivery of books there too.

In New Zealand, the Commerce Commission says that although it has received a few complaints about Taylor's books over the years, including two in the past few weeks, they have never investigated him. But consumer advocacy programme Fair Go has. Taylor featured on the programme three times in 2000-2001 over complaints about late or non-delivery of his books to New Zealand customers. Around 2000, Taylor was hit by a series of judgments against him, including two for about $20,000. In June 2000, one of his and Coddington's companies was put into receivership. The financial wolves that had hounded him in 1985 were snapping at him again.

Within months, Coddington, who had rejoined North & South in 1999, severed her links with the companies. It was an arm's length transfer. The shares now rested with a company co-owned by Taylor and Coddington's daughter, Briar McCormack, a journalist and producer on the Holmes programme. McCormack is understood to be distraught at the publicity about her entanglement with Taylor's troubled business ventures.

Coddington, who has stood by Taylor and taken an active role in his businesses through all the complaints, financial woes, and warnings, has decided she can no longer be seen to be linked to them.

"I resigned from involvement in Alister Taylor's companies in 2000 because I went back to North & South as a full-time writer, and at the same time I was diagnosed with invasive melanoma and had to undergo several bouts of surgery," says Coddington.

"I wasn't sure what the future would hold. The law and general practice recognises that a director of a company has two courses of action if he or she disapproves of the manner in which a company is being run - change the way it is run, or resign. I tried to change the way Alister did business, but I couldn't, so I resigned.

"My lawyer chased up the Companies Office to correct the records because it was untidy. I wasn't sure if there was any value in the company when I transferred the shares to my daughter, on behalf of my four children, but if there was to be any future benefit, I wanted my children to have the chance of some benefit."

But in Parliament, the MP once tipped as a future Act leader has found that opponents will not easily let her forget her past. "It's no good to say you were a director of these companies that have rorted people for years and then because you transfer your shares, you suddenly have amnesia," Labour's Clayton Cosgrove said this week.

Meanwhile, as at the time of the bankruptcy, political gossip has began to do the rounds about the state of Coddington and Taylor's relationship. Only two months ago Coddington was certain.

She told the Press newspaper that she was forever being asked about supposed affairs she was having. It was, she implied, ridiculous. "I've been living with the same man for 27 years."