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This is the face of evil.
Bad tempered, ill mannered and an absolute coward.
Until now Benjamin Joseph Swann had been able to hide his identity behind a can of beer - the only image that seemed to exist of him.
Even as the 31-year-old entered the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday, he covered his face in shame from waiting cameras.
You see Swann killed a baby.
If that wasn't bad enough, he pinned it on the infant's mother.
When he was born, baby Elijah wasn't expected to live more than 15 minutes.
He fought for 115 days.
And then, in the dead of night in a quiet Werribee street, Swann - the man his mother had crowned 'Elijah's dad' - ended the baby's life.
Elijah weighed less than a bag of sugar when he came into the world.
Weighing just 761 grams of pure grit, he clawed his way through months of tubes, alarms and prayers in two neonatal intensive care units.
Elijah's mother, Elyce, who works at an IVF clinic in Melbourne, met Swann online on September 27, 2023, when she was three months' pregnant.
Swann, a carpenter who lived in Manor Lakes in Melbourne's west, was already a father to a young boy, who lived with his mother in Western Australia.
Elyce worked out quickly Swann had a problem.
Methylamphetamine - the dreaded drug ice.
It was made clear to Swann that drugs were not going to be a part of Elijah's life, and he agreed to get off the gear.
TRAUMATIC BIRTH
Elijah came into the world like he left it - violently.
It was suspected Elyce was experiencing a placental abruption, so Elijah was delivered by an emergency caesarean section that day.
He had no heartbeat and required CPR at birth and a complex resuscitation that involved intubation.
Elyce's sister, Jessica, told the tiny baby to stay strong and 'fight to stay with us'.
For the first 104 days of his life - so just over three months - Elijah received oxygen and support with his breathing.
He spent his first Christmas in hospital.
Meanwhile, the cracks in Elyce's relationship with Swann were already well established.
It had reached the stage where the worried mum slapped Swann with an intervention order.
He had threatened to smash up her car in November that year and had been given his marching orders.
'Let's hope your safe place is still in one piece. It would be unfortunate to come home to a great big mess. Ha ha ha,' Swann threatened.
But Elyce took him back time and time again.
By January 6, 2024 - just days before Elijah would finally come home - Swann's 'anger management issues' were out of control.
He told a doctor he had still been using meth despite his promises to Elyce to stop.
There was another incident, and Elyce once again told Swann it was over, telling him her child's welfare came first.
Swann responded with more threats and found himself days later at the Werribee Police Station where he copped an interim order prohibiting him from contacting Elyce.
That order required him to attend court the very same day he killed Elijah.
Swann begged Elyce to drop the complaint, saying it would kill his chances of ever having access to his biological son again.
In a decision that will haunt Elyce forever, she took Swann back for the last time.
She had desperately wanted Swann to be her child's father, telling him: 'you're my forever person, Elijah's dad always.'
On January 19, during a routine check-up, a maternal health nurse had no concerns with Elijah's health.
He was pink and alert, crying as he was due for a feed.
That night, Elyce was shattered. Elijah wouldn't settle and Elyce asked for help. Swann wasn't happy.
'Don't f**king worry about it because I am already up,' he barked.
Elyce muted the baby monitor and drifted in and out of sleep.
She woke to a loud bang that sounded like something hitting one of the walls.
Then the din was over.
Elijah went silent.
Swann returned to Elyce and handed him over.
'Take this f**king baby,' he said.
Elyce got Elijah a bottle as he began to cry again.
Only he wouldn't take it like he usually did.
Elijah was gasping for air.
When Swann picked up his little arm, it simply flopped back down.
Swann was asked to call an ambulance but refused.
Elyce made the frantic call.
At the hospital, doctors quickly ascertained Elijah's tiny skull had been smashed, and he was not going to survive.
His brain was swollen and damaged beyond repair.
Elijah was pronounced dead on January 20 - the cause later determined to be 'blunt force head trauma'.
If he'd been full term, he'd have been 11 days old.
Traces of meth had been found on Elijah's hair - a byproduct of Swann's vile drug habit.
Elyce could not bring herself to believe Swann had hurt her baby.
But behind closed doors, under questioning by police, Swann threw her under the bus.
He told detectives he 'didn't do anything'.
Swann said Elyce had struggled with postnatal depression and she had carried guilt for not bringing Elijah to full term.
He told police he had experience with children through his own son, and commented 'I hope she didn't do anything'.
The seasoned detectives didn't believe a word and Swann was promptly charged with murder.
But Swann stuck to his story, blaming Elijah's mum to anyone who would listen, including to police.
MOTHER'S TORMENT
For 20 long months Elyce was put through the ringer amid allegations she had murdered her own baby.
Swann maintained his story all the way up until his trial when he changed his tune with a deal that allowed him to plead guilty to child homicide rather than murder.
In the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday, Elyce stared down her child's killer.
'I was asked recently if I think about this daily and to be completely honest, I think of Elijah every waking moment,' she said.
'The fact that my son's life was robbed from him creeps in, and it's a horrible reminder how I let this cancerous evil into our lives.'
Elyce spoke of her torment at being blamed for her son's death.
'I waited 20 months for him to plead guilty, 20 months of lying, 20 months of having this heavy weight lingering over not just my life, but my family's lives - 20 months of blaming me for this,' she said.
'Because of Ben's cowardice, I was accused, attacked, and humiliated in court. It was alluded to that I was responsible for taking my son's life. I was horrendously questioned for hours, traumatised.
'He wanted to be a stepdad - he didn't deserve that privilege - and I should have never trusted him.'
Elyce spoke of her heartache over Elijah's horrific death.
'When others get to see their kids grow up, I'll forever see mine as a three-month-old,' she said.
'Other parents get to see their kids' first steps, their first words, put a Band-Aid on their grazed knee, wipe away their tears after their first heartbreak, but I won't ever get any of that.
'I'll have to celebrate every birthday wondering what he would have looked like, how he would have been, and who he could have become.'
Elyce told Swann his guilty plea had brought her no peace and nothing ever would.
'I pray that none of you ever have to feel this way, especially at the hands of someone you thought you loved,' she told the court.
'Ben, you took Elijah's life away, but his soul lives on. Elijah, I hope we get justice.'
Defence barrister Rishi Nathwani, KC tendered dozens of character references on behalf of Swann, who he said was supported by a decent, law-abiding family.
In arguing for a lenient sentence, he presented Justice James Gorton with a series of cases he believed were similar to his client's - none of which included a child killer who had blamed the mother.
Mr Nathwani conceded Swann's actions after the killing were an 'aggravating factor'.
He told the court his client faced a tough stretch in prison, where he is a marked man by inmates who have a rightful distaste for baby killers.
Swann will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.