Wellington College bursar killed when 'horseplay' game of 'slaps' with son went wrong

A bursar at the prestigious Wellington College was killed when a "horseplay" game of ‘slaps' with his son went tragically wrong, an inquest heard.

Army veteran Malcolm Callender and his son Ewan, 19, had been playing the game after watching football together at a bar in Reading in April last year.

CCTV footage in the bar showed Mr Callender, a bursar at top boarding school Wellington College in Crowthorne, Berkshire, raise his hand and strike his son, who went to retaliate but instead embraced his father.

But Ewan, who was himself in the army for three years, told an inquest in Reading that after leaving the bar his father turned around and told him: “Right, you can have your free shot”.

"I knew exactly what he meant, I get to slap him now”, Ewan said.

The inquest heard that Ewan did not want to slap his bigger-built father, who served in the military for 27 years, but “wanted to make his dad proud”.

Witnesses saw Ewan clench his fists before he delivered the slap which sent Mr Callender backwards onto the road, where he hit his head.

As nearby security staff and other bystanders at the scene rushed to try to assist Mr Callender, Ewan was heard screaming "wake up Dad! Dad I love you!", before police arrested him.

Mr Callender was rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital where he was treated for an acute subdural haemorrhage, but he died in the early hours of the following morning and a cause of death was given as "blunt force trauma to the head."

More than 18 months after Ewan was arrested by police at the scene, the Crown Prosecution Service decided they would not prosecute him.

At the inquest on Tuesday, Ian Wade QC,  assistant coroner for Berkshire, explained that the slap should be seen as legal "horseplay."

Ewan’s mother - Malcolm Callender's wife - told the inquest that the slapping between father and son was a common game they played.

Kathryn Morrison-Callender, also an Army veteran, said: "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'.

“Another game we would play was slaps.

"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?'

"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.

"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."

Mr Wade said he would not reach a conclusion that Mr Callender had died from unlawful killing, explaining: "The law recognises that consent is a legitimate concept in the law of assault and the application of force that is consented to, is not assault.

"You are also allowed to consent to the application of force in what is a rather Victorian way called horseplay. It seems to me that what took place here fulfils the definition of horseplay."

Concluding the inquest with a narrative verdict Mr Wade said Mr Callender died after "engaging in non-aggressive, not hostile, consensual horseplay."

After a 27-year career in the military which saw “a number of tours in Bosnia”, Callender became the works and estates bursar at Wellington College in 2015 after getting a call from an old contact he made during the military.

Wellington College is a top day and boarding school in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire, that teaches 1,100 pupils, between the ages of 13 and 18, each year.

It costs £13,860 per term for boarders, and previous alumni include author George Orwell, current Conservative MP Crispin Blunt and actor Sir Christopher Lee.