A decorated war hero in the UK died after a “game of slaps” with his 19-year-old son went horribly wrong, according to a report.
Malcolm Callender, who became the bursar of posh Wellington College in 2015 after a 27-year military career, delivered a “stinging slap” to his son Ewan during some horseplay, the Sun reported about an inquest into the tragedy.
“Right, you can have your free shot,” Callender, with his hands behind his back, then told his son.
Witnesses saw Ewan clench his fists before delivering the slap, which sent his dad flying backward — hitting his head on the pavement, according to the news outlet.
“Wake up, Dad! Dad, I love you!” the distraught teen shouted as bystanders rushed to help.
Ewan was arrested, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him 18 months after the incident.
The inquest in Reading heard that the two men had been watching a soccer game at a bar April 12, 2019, before fooling around in the town center.
Surveillance video showed Callender raise his hand and strike his son, who went to retaliate but instead embraced his dad, the inquest heard.
“Dad slapped me around the face on the way out just because we were messing around. It is just normal. There was nothing aggressive about it,” Ewan said.
“It was when we were outside near the front door. Me and Luke were gonna stay out, Dad was going to go home with his friends,” he continued, referring to a friend.
“We started walking towards the station, we must have been in mid-conversation. Dad said, ‘Right, you can have your free shot.’ I knew exactly what he meant, I get to slap him now. Luke was like, ‘Come on, you do not want to do that because you know you are going to lose,’” Ewan said.
“I never win,” he added.
Catherine Morrison-Callender, Ewan’s mom, told the inquest that the slapping was a common game her son and husband played.
“As a family, we would always be messing about with each other and we would be giving each other quick little digs in the ribs which we called ‘fingers of steel,’” she said.
“We would wrestle with each other where we would try to grab the other person and take them to the ground. Another game we would play was slaps,” Morrison-Callender continued.
“When Ewan was about 15 years old, he and Malcolm would progress to try to slap each other around the face. Malcolm would always be winding him up, saying, ‘You reckon you can take me yet?’” she said.
“Malcolm was very competitive so he would never let Ewan win, he would use it as a reminder that Ewan was not quite big enough yet,” the mom said.
“After Malcolm passed away, I spoke to Ewan about what happened. From what he described, it sounded just like the games that they had been playing together since Ewan was a kid,” she said.
Ewan’s pal Luke Key described the “game of slaps” to the inquest.
“It is a bit of an army thing and Ewan and Malcolm had that sort of relationship. He always had a strong relationship with his dad,” he said, adding that he noticed that Ewan didn’t want to strike his dad this time.
“I could see in Ewan’s face that he really did not want to do it although I got the impression that he had something to prove to his dad,” Key said. “Ewan looked up to his dad as he was a higher-up figure in the army and he wanted to make his dad proud.”
Callender was rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, where he was treated for an acute subdural hemorrhage but died the following morning from what was determined to be “blunt force trauma.”
He was found to be intoxicated at the time of the tragic game.
“The law recognizes that consent is a legitimate concept in the law of assault and the application of force that is consented to is not assault,” assistant coroner Ian Wade said.
“You are allowed to consent to the application of force in sport. After all, if it were not so, then every contact sport and every martial art would be against the law,” he added.
Callender, who left school at age 15 to join the army, served with the Royal Engineers in the 1990s in Bosnia and Germany, eventually reaching the rank of quartermaster.