It emerged that Mr Verity's secretary, Anne Ridley, 36, had claimed in April that he had sexually harassed her on a recruitment trip to Thailand the previous November. The governing body had run an internal enquiry on the matter at the start of the summer holidays, but had still not reached any conclusive findings by September.Many parents who approved of and respected Mr Verity on account of the excellent academic results he was achieving at the school were appalled at the delay. This tiny pump, which is the size of a thumbnail, could be the first implant able to be inserted inside children and is expected to be ready for use within two years.. VICKY WARD Parents of pupils at Dulwich College, one of Britain's oldest and most respected independent schools, were yesterday receiving the news that headmaster Anthony Verity, 56, had been cleared of wrongdoing following the allegations of sexual harassment which have been dogging him since June, and which provoked his suspension from the school in September. However, he will have to wait until the Board of Governors convenes on Thursday to discover if he is to be reinstated in the pounds 100,000-a-year position he has held since 1986.The board's chairman, Sir Colin Coles, would only comment at the weekend: "The governors each have their own views, but he is certainly a headmaster of high repute."Controversy has surrounded the board's actions ever since it waited until just a few days before the start of the autumn term to notify parents in a terse note that Mr Verity had been temporarily removed from his post, "pending further investigations of certain matters".It was left to the combined efforts of alarmed parents and the media to try to weed out what had actually happened. In 1992 Mr Westaby operated on Mr Vaughan after he ruptured an artery, an operation which the singer said saved his life.Mr Westaby, who had been involved in US research on artificial hearts for a number of years, said this was the first time such an implant had been inserted with a view to it remaining inside the patient permanently.

"There is a very long history of artificial-heart implants and Papworth Hospital have done implants using a completely different device. That device is extremely noisy and for other reasons, we think, far less ideal than the device we used ... Our device was modified to make it suitable for long-term implantation and on the same day the operation was carried out, a professor in Berlin did the same operation in the same context."The team at Oxford is also collaborating with the American Robert Jarvik on developing another implant called the Jarvik 2000. Mr Goodman is reported as saying: "I felt I had absolutely nothing to lose with this I weighed up the options. My life was seriously at risk, and this seemed the only justifiable way forward."The grapefruit-sized unit, which is virtually silent in comparison to earlier versions, which were extremely noisy, is powered by two 1.5lb rechargeable lead-acid batteries.

It comprises a chamber which contracts and fills with blood, then pumping it throughout the body. The rate at which the air pump works responds to physical exertion, thereby allowing patients to lead a virtually normal life.Steve Westaby, the surgeon who carried out last week's intricate operation, said around 500 patients had received similar implants in the US, but these had been used as an intermediate device for those waiting for human hearts.It is the first of what is hoped to be a series of three similar operations funded by Frankie Vaughan, the singer, and his friends, who have raised pounds 750,000 between them. They launched a fund-raising campaign a year ago after learning of the pioneering work. On Saturday he suffered a slight stroke and was said by the hospital yesterday to be "as well as can be expected''. It is hoped it will provide a permanent solution for Mr Goodman, despite his being given a few months to live after being diagnosed as suffering from heart failure.Until recently, mechanical hearts were designed to provide a bridge for seriously ill people forced to wait for a transplant because of a shortage of donor organs. The development follows a series of operations at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, where the first permanent artificial heart was implanted last summer, though the patient, Arthur Cornhill, 63, a former stuntman, died nine months later.Mr Goodman , a father of two, was reportedly sitting up in bed the day after the three-hour operation, and on Friday he celebrated his birthday with a cake presented to him by the surgical team. IAN MACKINNON The first person to receive a permanent electric heart was recovering in hospital in Oxford yesterday after the unique operation last week.

Abel Goodman, 64, was selected for the operation from 25 volunteers after it was decided that his age and kidney problems ruled out a normal heart transplant. The retired film producer received the new device in a privately funded operation at the John Radcliffe Hospital. The former Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and French defence minister Charles Millon signed the formal agreement on 27 June.. His deputy is Air Commodore Rob Wright, the Air Commodore Operations at High Wycombe. After two years, the posts will be rotated.The group was announced at the Chartres summit last November. Its first commander will be French Major-General Andre Nicolau, who is Vice-Chief of Air Defence and Air Operations, with his headquarters at Taverny, near Paris. The British might send soldiers to secure an airfield, for example, before French planes arrived to start flying offensive or defensive missions.The group, known as FBEAG, has a full-time staff of eleven at High Wycombe but the director and his deputy are non-resident. The group will also draw up common operating procedures, co-ordinate contingency planning and take in the planning and conduct of exercises and operations.The Air Group is not an aerial "Eurocorps" and has no standing forces of its own.

The idea is to increase efficiency, enabling one nation to provide forces of a particular type if the other does not have them spare. The main areas are combat air patrols over areas where peace-keeping and other operationsare in progress, air strikes, search and rescue, reconnaissance, airborne command posts, electronic warfare and setting up and defending forward air bases. The British and French navies also co-operate in the nuclear field, but the agreement on the Euro Air Group excludes nuclear matters.The group will co-ordinate the use of French and British aircraft so as to avoid duplication. They spend almost exactly the same as each other on defence, their armed forces mirror each other, and they have worked particularly closely in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The small but important Group is not concerned with defending Nato territory against direct attack. At the moment it is a bilateral agreement between the two countries but may be open to other Western European Union partners later. The two leaders will meet at RAF High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the headquarters of RAF Strike Command, where they will also present decorations to General Sir Michael Rose, the former commander of UN forces in Bosnia, and General Bertrand de Lapresle, who commanded UN forces in former Yugoslavia.