A POLICEMAN accidentally stabbed his son to death with a kitchen knife just seconds after pretending to execute him in the style of a gladiator.

Ian Johnson, 40, told a coroner’s inquest how the four-inch stainless steel knife “slipped from my grasp” during some rough and tumble play with his son, Conor, 11, while he prepared dinner. The knife pierced the left ventricle of Conor’s heart.

“The cut was just above his right nipple,” Mr Johnson said. “It was very small. I said don’t worry. My first reaction was very selfish. I thought his mum is going to kill me when she sees this because it is going to need one or two stitches.”

In his police statement, read to the hearing in Worthing yesterday, Mr Johnson gave a graphic reconstruction of the events that led to the death of his “bright and bubbly” son last August.

The two had enjoyed a day out together in Brighton before returning to Mr Johnson’s flat in Littlehampton, West Sussex, to watch a film.

“I’d bought him a book about gladiators and the Roman arenas,” he said. “I said, ‘Do you know how gladiators used to execute people?’ and he said, ‘You told me before’.”

Mr Johnson, who is divorced from Conor’s mother, demonstrated on his son, using his finger to simulate a knife going into his neck, then knelt down and got Conor to demonstrate on him, this time using the kitchen knife.

When Mr Johnson returned to tending their swordfish steaks on the hob, Conor, whom he nicknamed Spud, playfully kicked his behind, so he decided to tease him and let out a mighty “aaaaagggh”.

Forgetting that he was holding the knife, Mr Johnson turned round and grabbed Conor tightly, then twisted him away from him.

“I can’t remember stabbing him,” Mr Johnson said. “He said, ‘Dad, dad’, and I said, ‘Oh’, and I remember throwing the knife behind me. I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m sorry Conor’.

“Conor was worried and was panicking. I said, ‘Look in my eyes. It will be all right’. I just wanted to entertain him. I didn’t want to ignore him. I was a dad playing with his kid.”

Conor was taken to Worthing Hospital at about 10pm and operated on, but he died four hours later.

Mr Johnson, who had drunk a bottle of wine in the four hours before the incident, asked to be placed under arrest and was detained by his employer, Sussex Police, on suspicion of murder. No action was taken subsequently.

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