STUDENTS from one of the colleges of London University have caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage to a rival college after a drunken end-of-term rampage.

London School of Economics (LSE) students smashed windows, kicked in doors and tore down ceilings as they ran amok through the English department of King’s College London after a fancy dress party.

Rick Trainor, the principal of King’s, has called on students not to carry out “retaliatory” behaviour, after the LSE apologised for the incident and agreed to pay the costs.

It was meant to be a light-hearted fancy dress party that would end in a conga around the campus. Instead, the traditional Athletics’ Union Barrel Christmas party culminated in a drunken rampage last Friday, with students setting off fire hydrants and causing £30,000 of damage at King’s.

Howard Davies, the director of the LSE, which counts Mick Jagger, Cherie Blair and Lord Saatchi among its past students, deplored the commotion. “We greatly regret the damage and disturbance caused by a number of our students. It is very disappointing that a group should have allowed what is normally an enjoyable day to degenerate into an incident which has shamed the school,” he said.

The incident is being investigated and Mr Davies, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, promised that those responsible would be dealt with appropriately.

King’s is confident that closed-circuit television will identify the culprits, who face being thrown off their course and having to help to pay for the damage they caused.

The LSE students’ union, which has agreed to pay the full costs, condemned the actions of members of the Athletics’ Union Barrel. “We have already met representatives from King’s College, King’s College Students’ Union, LSE and King’s College security,” the union said. “We have offered our most sincere apologies and promised to cover the costs of repair to property.

“We will be making formal apologies to King’s College and in particular the English department. A full and thorough investigation is now under way.”

Students and staff at King’s had been frightened by the rioting. Professor Trainor, however, urged them not to inflict reprisals. “I would caution most strongly against retaliatory behaviour by King’s students. Such action would be very wrong, not least because it would expose innocent people in another institution to danger and distress,” he told college staff.

The neighbouring London University colleges have always enjoyed a healthy rivalry, according to a King’s spokesman, but this was “way beyond the high-jinks of normal university life”. He said: “It’s the first time in recent history that this kind of damage has happened. It’s done and life moves on, but it’s not very admirable.”

King’s is at present 80th in the Shanghai Jiao Tong world rankings, and the LSE is 203rd. Both are constituent colleges of London University.