Caleb Knight

Caleb "Cal" Knight (born Steven; 12 February 1984) is a registrar who currently works at Holby City Emergency Department. He joined the department in January 2014. On his first day, he discovered that his brother Ethan Hardy had started working there the week before.

Throughout his time at the ED, Cal has been seen by others to be less advanced in his medical knowledge than his brother. This has annoyed Cal and contributed in driving the two of them apart. However, when upset or angered by a situation, Cal has been prone to going out and making a drunken mistake and turning up unprepared for work the next day.

Since starting work at the ED Cal has seen the arrival of various staff members including the current Clinical Lead Connie Beauchamp, Ben "Lofty" Chiltern and Jacob Masters. During this time several staff members have also departed, including Martin Ashford and Tess Bateman as well as Jeff Collier, due to his sudden death.

Early life
Cal was born in February 1984 to Emilie Groome. At a young age, Cal and his brother Ethan, then Michael, were taken from Emilie due to her poor mental state and disorders as a result of her early symptoms of Huntington's disease. The brothers were then adopted by another couple. Prior to the adoption, Cal's name was Steven.

Years later, having grown up not knowing they were adopted, Cal told Charlie that he hadn't seen his father for a long time. Much the same can be assumed for his brother, as when they first saw each other at work they seemed very shocked, and weren't on very friendly terms. Cal studied at UCL specialising in medicine where he first encountered Connie Beauchamp during one of her annual lectures there. In around 2009, Cal started his career specialising in emergency medicine, presumably completing his foundation training years shortly after.

When Ethan was due to arrive for his first shift, he stayed with his and Cal's mother, Matilda, who was very ill. Even though Ethan had to get to the ED, he didn't want to leave her by herself, but eventually realised that Cal wasn't coming anytime soon. During his shift, he sent a text message to Ethan saying that his plane was late, and he'd be running an hour late. During the day, Cal eventually arrived to see his mother, but she passed away whilst he was there which left Ethan feeling guilty that he wasn't there on the day that it mattered.

Time in the Emergency Department (2014-)
Cal arrived in the department a week after his brother Ethan joined in January 2014. It's likely that they were hired as replacements for Tom Kent and Sam Nicholls who left the ED the previous month. Upon discovering that he would be working alongside his brother, Cal was angry, as they didn't get along and had lost contact. Zoe soon realised that there was a problem, at which point they revealed how they knew each other, but they both insisted that it wouldn't get in the way of their work.

On his first day, Cal was called out to the site of an accident where a limousine was hanging precariously off the edge of a bridge. Working closely alongside the paramedics at the scene, the patients were successfully evacuated from the vehicle. In February, Cal and Ethan attended a meeting with their mother's solicitor to discuss her will and how the property and money was to be divided. However, Cal was left furious when their mother had written in the will that even though the property value was to be shared equally, his share would be left in a trust fund under Ethan's name until he was sure that Cal wouldn't spend the lot on gambling, drink and women.

In March, Ethan was annoyed with Cal when he tried flirting with Jenny, the nurse who cared for their mother before her death. Rita later confronted Ethan and told him to stand up against Cal. The following month, Cal helped Robyn pass her assessment, and later helped Lily to show her that he was interested in her. Although this caused even more tension to arise between him and Ethan, they continued to throw themselves into work as Cal attempted to outdo his brother.

In June, Lily overheard Cal badmouthing her to Fletch, saying that she was easy to get, which left her heartbroken and angry. When she later told Ethan, he confronted Cal outside the ED and ended up punching him in the face. Cal later stole Ethan's ideas on blood transfusions and cutting down costs, but Lily helped to expose him and credit Ethan for the ideas.

In December 2014, Cal started dating Taylor Ashbie, a woman who claimed to be part of a charity organisation. Their relationship continued into 2015, when Taylor asked Cal to give her £15,000 to donate to an orphan child abroad. When Cal failed to get the money, he stole it from Ethan out of fear of losing Taylor. Soon after, Cal went to her office to find it empty and abandoned. When he called her, she picked up eventually to apologise to him for taking the money, therefore revealing that she was a con artist.

In February, an inspection went badly in the ED and Connie was left furious at the staff. The following week when the report came in, she asked Cal for his resignation letter. However, after a word from Charlie, Connie told Cal that he still had a place in the department.

In April, Cal received a call from Taylor saying that she had been stabbed and was in a public park toilet. When he got there, he said that he needed to take her to the ED, but she declined presumably due to the fact she couldn't have been seen by police. At this point, he phoned Ethan for help to bring medical supplies, to which he reluctantly accepted. After an agreement was made between Ethan and Taylor that she must run away and never come back, Cal took his anger out on him when he found out that Taylor ran off because of Ethan. Taylor was intercepted by police and taken under arrest. Cal and Ethan had a fight as a result of the events.

In June, Cal held a fundraiser for a leukemia patient by doing a nude calendar shoot. Cal expressed his interest about becoming a consultant to Connie in July. He went to Tess for help, but found her overly organised revision plans and schedules were too much for him. Upon taking the FCEM exam, he and his brother failed, whereas Lily passed her CT2 and became a registrar like them.

Later in 2015, Taylor turned up at the ED with a baby girl claiming it to be his. After she disappeared again, Cal was stuck with the baby who he named Matilda after his and Ethan's mother. In November, he brought her into the ED and it was discovered she had a rash, but she soon recovered just in time for Cal to find out he wasn't her biological father via a paternity test. When looking at the test again, Cal realised that his blood type was O+, which wasn't possible as his mother's was AB. Charlie confirmed this, and Cal came to the realisation that he could be adopted. In disbelief, he got his own blood group tested only to find that he was in fact adopted.

In December, Cal went with Charlie to visit his biological mother, Emilie Groome, but was distraught to discover she had Huntington's disease, was seriously ill and that he had a fifty percent chance of inheriting it. However, he was relieved to find out from her care worker that there were two children given away for adoption, the other being Ethan, meaning him and Cal were still related. That evening at the pub, Ethan noticed Cal crying and assumed it was because of Matilda being taken away. Presumably because he knew how upset it made him, Cal decided not to tell Ethan that they were adopted.

On New Years Day during Cal's shift, he became increasingly paranoid about the fact he could inherit Huntington's disease. That evening, he went to a bar and got drunk and met a girl named Katya. He escaped her pimp with her and she stayed at his flat. The next morning after she left, she was taken by the pimp from the night before. Cal chased them in his car which resulted in a car crash involving them both and two patients who had been at the ED the day before. When back at the ED, he was speaking to Jacob and Charlie about the accident when he said that he may have still been under the influence of alcohol from the night before. Connie overheard this and decided to send him under observation for another couple of hours in order to be on the safe side and let him sober up so he would definitely be within the legal limit by the time the police tested him.

Continuing into the new year, Cal avoided telling Ethan about his discovery, as Ethan was facing problems of his own, primarily due to the guilt he felt due to the fact he missed Olivia's signs of abuse. Charlie frequently pestered Cal in an attempt to get him to tell Ethan, but Cal eventually snapped at him and told him that it wasn't his decision to make, but Charlie was left wondering whether he should tell Ethan himself. During the black alert, Cal was prepared to tell Ethan once and for all but Ethan's issues only worsened when he realised that a man who he had given little attention to had committed suicide later that day.

In February, Emilie arrived at the ED with a burn to her hand. Cal quickly realised that she had turned up merely so she could see Ethan. Although initially angry, he later came to realise that she didn't choose to give them up and had sympathy for her. During the shift, Cal still attempted to keep Ethan and Emilie separated due to the fact that he didn't want Ethan finding out that way. However, Ethan ended up treating her still remaining oblivious to their connection. At the end of their shift, Ethan went to check up on Emilie one last time to find her emotional with Cal by her side, and Cal told Ethan the truth once and for all. Ethan reacted badly to the news and the following week the two had a punch-up in the staff room but Zoe quickly broke it up. At the end of the shift Ethan told Cal that he wasn't his brother anymore, which clearly hurt him.

Later in the month, Cal and Emilie arrived in the ED following a fall which resulted in Cal dislocating his shoulder. Once in the ED, Emilie was diagnosed with pneumonia by Ethan, and told Cal it wasn't looking good. When the two had a firm talk about Emilie's condition in the staff room, Ethan realised, with some advice from Charlie that it would only get harder the longer he denied it. Cal also received the results to his and Ethan's Huntington's test.

In early March, Cal and Ethan travelled with Emilie as she was going to somewhere more peaceful due to her wish not to die in a hospital. On the way there, they hijacked the ambulance leaving Iain and Jez stranded. They narrowly avoided being arrested when a suspicious policewoman interrogated them at the roadside after they veered off into the shrubbery. They eventually arrived at Conleth Bay and prepared to open their test results. Ethan was oblivious to the fact that Cal had sent off his blood, and Cal told him that he took a sample back in January when Ethan demonstrated receiving an injection in order to put a patient at ease. Emilie died shortly after they told her that they were both negative, but after her death Ethan revealed that he had in fact inherited the disease, which left Cal in shock. Towards the end of the month, Cal and Ethan argued outside the ED as Ethan had been pushing Cal further away following his diagnosis.

In April, Cal overheard Ethan telling Lily about his Huntington's news, and how he wished he had got it instead. Cal went missing, but Ethan was eventually able to track him down, knowing that he would have gone to Colneth Bay. He arrived there to find Cal, and Ethan apologised to him. They had a conversation in Cal's car and Ethan told him that he intended to be more like Cal and enjoy life more. They then ran down the beach together into the sea, just like they had done as children according to Emilie.

In June, Cal tried to get Ethan to flirt with a woman whom he recognised as she worked in the local delicatessen. However, Cal was shocked at how bad he was at impressing her. However, she later dragged him off into the storage cupboard and he had to ask her to get off. She later fainted, and after Ethan called Cal to help it transpired that she was just trying to get pregnant as her husband didn't want to have kids.

In August 2016, Cal attended Charlie's 30th anniversary party at The Hope & Anchor opposite the ED. He saw Ethan's failed attempts at flirting with Alicia, and encouraged him to show his vulnerable side. However, the party was soon put on hold when news of Connie's crash got back to the department, and they all headed back to the ED to see how Connie was whilst Grace was on her way via air ambulance. However, the helicopter carrying her was hit by a drone and it crashed down into the entrance of the ED, resulting in the entrance being blocked and scaffolding to collapse. Cal narrowly avoided being hit by a chunk of flying metal. As Cal was helping the wounded, him and the paramedics heard the siren going off on the ambulance which had been buried by the scaffolding. They went to investigate and found Ethan and Alicia under it. Ethan had sustained a leg injury, and Cal thought that they'd been lucky to escape with the injuries that they did. As the day drew to a close and the staff were preparing to stay and help with the cleanup, Ethan told Cal that showing his vulnerable side had backfired. However, Cal proved him wrong when he told him the way that Alicia was looking at him flirtatiously.

In September, Cal helped Ethan think of an excuse to get out of going to Alicia's birthday party after he'd seen his romantic advances fail. However, Ethan later decided to go but saw Ethan and Cal kissing, which left him distraught. They had a one night stand, and finally confronted each other about it in October. Cal was surprised when Alicia didn't want to do it again, although he didn't want to either. He was even more surprised and offended when she rated him six out of ten. He got back at her later in the day by giving her the same type of feedback.

In October, Ethan received two tickets to the hospital's awards night from Elle, but it wasn't long before Cal tried to get them off of him so he could take Alicia. Ethan rejected his offer, but later gave the tickets to Cal and he took Alicia instead. Elle was baffled by his decision, oblivious to the fact his decision had been affected by a chat with a patient earlier in the day.

Personal life
In summer 2014, he was romantically involved with Lily although they never dated. When she overheard him badmouthing her to Fletch, she ended it with him. Also in 2014, he attempted flirting with Connie Beauchamp on multiple occasions but she simply ignored his attempts or dismissed them with sarcastic comebacks.

Cal entered a relationship with Taylor Ashbie in December 2014, but it soon ended when she conned him into giving her £15,000, which he stole from Ethan, before running away. Cal has no children, but Matilda, Taylor Ashbie's daughter, was left in his care for a short period before it was found that he wasn't the father.

In September 2016, Cal had a one night stand with Alicia.

Trivia

 * Ethan Hardy is his brother.
 * He hates his father, his brother and facing up to the consequences of his actions.
 * He loves fast cars and a fast lifestyle and spending his salary and beyond.
 * When they were younger, Cal and Ethan's favourite meal was crisp sandwiches.
 * Cal's biggest fear is to end up like his father.
 * Cal's biggest regret is that he wasn't there for his mother when she died of cancer.
 * His blood type is O+.
 * Cal and Ethan were adopted.
 * He studied at University College London (UCL).

Behind the scenes
Cal has been portrayed by Richard Winsor on Casualty since his arrival in 2014. When asked what it was like jumping onto a show like Casualty, Winsor said: "It’s a juggernaut. Everyone knows each other, a lot of people have been here for a while and clearly know what they’re doing. So you are jumping into the middle of all that. But the producers, cast and crew are all so lovely and supportive. It feels like a big family."

In terms of prominence in the show, Cal has had centric episodes to date. He was one of the few characters not to have a centric episode in series 29. In series 30, Cal's birth name was revealed to have been Steven and Ethan's Michael. This was possibly inspired by Michael Stevenson who plays paramedic Iain Dean.

Appearances

 * See also: Character appearances and Category:Cal centric.

Cal made his first appearance in Casualty in the series 28 episode "Brothers at Arms".