THE Herald revealed in early June that Professor Brian Duffield, who has resigned as chief executive of the project to establish a University of the Highlands and Islands, had been the subject of very serious allegations of malpractice, made by former and senior members of staff.

They had claimed that his authoritarian regime demotivated staff who spent their entire time ''watching their backs'', and reported particularly high levels of sickness leave and stress-related absences among staff.

Those who could not endure any more were asked to sign ''gagging clauses'' above and beyond normal confidentiality constraints. Their complaints procedure did not lead to the board of governors, but to Professor Duffield or one of his subordinates.

The Herald studied these complaints, which independently made roughly the same allegations. We talked to former and current staff, some of whom had clearly suffered greatly from their experience at the UHI.

Mr Jack Dale, a consultant of the Association of University Teachers, had to negotiate departure terms for more members at UHI than at any other Scottish university over the past three years, despite there being a fraction of the staff. He concluded: ''It seems to me there is a deep-seated problem of morale among many of the

professional staff at UHI.''

When these allegations were put to Professor Duffield, he declined to comment, but an official statement was subsequently issued, claiming no ''complaints of this nature'' had been made through UHI's formal procedures for staff grievances.

The statement was a lie. Yet a few days later, the board of governors met under the chairmanship of Sir Fraser Morrison and issued a statement which, far from correcting the previous denial, made no mention of the allegations, but praised Brian Duffield's leadership.

Professor Jack Earls, chairman of UHI's audit committee, however, subsequently confirmed that he had received three complaints under the whistle-blowing procedure, and had discussed them with Sir Fraser and Professor Duffield. The latter gave Professor Earls assurances about the future.

It was then that Sir Fraser asked Mr Ken McKay to conduct an independent inquiry into the handling of the allegations. Just how many others knew about them remains unclear.

From the start, those critical of Professor Duffield, particularly Black Isle councillor David Alston and Sir Graham Hills, the former Principal of Strathclyde University who was one of the original architects of the UHI project, have been painted as trying to destabilise the whole UHI project and accused of having another agenda: trying to return the UHI to its federalist principles.

There is such a debate, but it has never had anything to do with Brian Duffield's management style. Those staff members who sought The Herald's help never mentioned it once.

Yet even in his retiral letter, Professor Duffield says of his detractors: ''It is also clear to me that the real agenda of this cabal has been to derail the progress of UHI towards designation.''

And there are those within UHI who still speak up for Professor Duffield; some have very particular reasons for doing so.

But what cannot be explained away is why The Herald has received messages of support from former staff at Leeds Metropolitan University where Professor Duffield was dean of the faculty of cultural and education studies until 1996; and from Dunfermline College in Edinburgh, where he also worked.

They all said that they were totally unsurprised by the UHI stories and wished the staff there well in their efforts.