A Melbourne man already imprisoned for the 2024 killing of his girlfriend’s 115-day-old infant has entered a guilty plea for a savage, previously unreported assault on the mother of the child that took place less than two weeks before the baby’s death.
Thirty-one-year-old Benjamin Joseph Swann, a former carpenter, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in November 2024 after being convicted of the homicide of 3-month-old Elijah, the infant son of his partner whom he began dating while she was pregnant. The fatal attack unfolded in the early hours of January 19, 2024, when Swann stayed overnight to help care for the newborn.
On Tuesday, Swann appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court via video link to answer for the assault that occurred at his Manor Lakes home 13 days prior, on January 6, 2024. Court documents detail that the attack erupted after an argument when the woman told Swann she intended to leave him. Swann proceeded to punch her repeatedly in the head and torso, before grabbing her by the neck, pinning her to a bed and choking her. Prosecutors told the court he then pressed a pillow over the woman’s face, leaving her terrified she would lose consciousness. The woman managed to push Swann off and begged him to stop, convinced he intended to kill her. Swann pleaded guilty to a single charge of recklessly causing injury.
Swann’s defense told the court that in the week leading up to the January 6 assault, their client had reached out to his general practitioner seeking treatment for persistent anger issues. Medical records show Swann told his doctor his anger had recently worsened and was damaging his relationship with his partner. The defense added that Swann came from a supportive, upstanding family and maintained consistent full-time employment before he was taken into custody following Elijah’s death. The court also heard that Swann has spent the majority of his 2.5 years of incarceration to date in protective custody, and he was supported by family members during the virtual hearing, waving to his mother as the proceeding concluded.
In handing down the new sentence, Magistrate Kieran Gilligan ruled that a prison term was the only fitting penalty for the offense, calling out family violence as a growing threat to Australian communities. “Family violence is a scourge on society,” Gilligan told the court. “I’m afraid it’s my experience in this court it continues to grow exponentially.”
Gilligan sentenced Swann to 12 months behind bars for the assault, to be served concurrently with his existing 13-year sentence for the infant homicide, meaning no additional custodial time will be added to Swann’s term. Under the sentence handed down for Elijah’s killing by the Victorian Supreme Court last year, Swann will become eligible for parole after serving 9.5 years of his sentence.
The fatal circumstances surrounding Elijah’s death were previously laid out during Swann’s homicide sentencing. Last year, Justice James Gorton noted that Swann had initially expected to step into a father figure role for the newborn. In the early hours of January 19, the baby’s mother asked Swann to feed Elijah while she rested, before she heard a loud bang coming from the infant’s room. When Swann returned to the bedroom, he handed the unconscious baby back to his mother, telling her “Take this f**king baby.” The mother noticed Elijah was struggling to breathe and immediately called emergency services, while Swann performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The infant was diagnosed with severe, unsurvivable traumatic brain injury and major cranial trauma, and was taken off life support the following day. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Swann initially denied harming Elijah and falsely attempted to direct blame to the boy’s mother, according to court records. Justice Gorton described the killing as an unpremeditated outburst of frustration common to tired caregivers, but noted that the infant was completely defenseless and could not recover from the harm inflicted.