sounds very harsh, but points of life always are and (i guess hes normally a decent bloke) its very easy to make mistakes like he did, especially if his dad was the same, infact in some study, a very very high number of people who had been abused as kids went on to do it to their kids, now of course im not saying thats what this is, just an interesting comparison, if his dad had always put him down at football or something..

well sounds like your sorted anyway, good luck!