A Bermuda College faculty member may have been made redundant because a teenager was stabbed at a Good Friday bash he organised.

The claim concerning the college's associate manager of recreation and sports programmes and facilities, Norbert Simons, came yesterday from a faculty member.

The anonymous source told The Royal Gazette that college heads had blamed the fight on Mr. Simons.

But he leapt to his colleague's defence and said: "I think they had it in for him all the time.

"They say that because Simons did not use college security and arranged his own then he is responsible for what happened.'' A fight broke out in a street outside the campus when the March 28 party concluded at around 2 a.m. A 19-year-old Southampton man was rushed to hospital after he was stabbed.

The party was organised by Mr. Simons -- who has been employed at the college for the past 11 years -- and is the sixth to be held. There have been no problems at previous functions.

Mr. Simons was responsible for planning college events such as fashion shows and talent shows as well as fund raisers for the college in the forms of cruises and these dances.

The source stressed: "The fight broke out after the party was over and people were cleaning up. We had plenty of security that night including myself.

"There were 15 guys including an off-duty Police officer and this guy from a security firm who brought three dogs with him.'' The man said the fight was a continuation of a fight which took place outside the Odyssey Night Club on March 23.

He claimed it involved two gangs -- one from Ord Road and the other from the "back of town'' -- not college students.

"It had nothing to do with the college. These guys came here to fight. They had baseball bats, machetes and pipes in the back of the car they came in,'' he continued.

"There was nothing that could have been done to prevent it.

"He took all the necessary precautions on a professional level to make sure the party for the students would be safe as possible.'' On Tuesday angry students protested the college's decision to make Mr. Simons redundant and staged a sit down in college president George Cook's office.

A meeting to discuss the situation and reach a solution was later arranged for Monday morning.

Dr. Cook refused to discuss what had led to Mr. Simons being made redundant.

However a staff member who said he had read the letter Mr. Simons received telling him he was being made redundant said the reason given was that "there was no money allotted in the Budget to carry his wages through the year''.