A Melbourne man on trial for killing his girlfriend's toddler is accused of fatally bludgeoning the boy with a metal table just weeks after moving into their home.
WARNING: This story contains graphic content.
Brendan Pallant is appearing in the Supreme Court of Victoria where he is charged with the murder of two-year-old Jaidyn Gomes-Sebastiao at Langwarrin.
He has pleaded not guilty.
In 2019, emergency services were called to the home Mr Pallant had recently begun sharing with Stacie Saggers, the toddler's mother.
Crown prosecutors told jurors that Mr Pallant was babysitting Jaidyn when he attacked the boy with a table weighing 4.6 kilograms in a "short but profound period of frustration, anger, impatience and loss of self-control".
"Jaidyn was struck with that metal table, causing a really serious injury to his head, his skull and his brain," Mark Gibson QC said.
"The injury to his brain proved fatal."
But Rishi Nathwani, who is defending Mr Pallant, raised the possibility that someone else may have killed Jaidyn, including the boy's mother.
"He cannot tell you how Jaidyn died, whether it was by accident or whether someone else who saw him last alive, in fact inflicted the fatal blow to him, which of course on the evidence is likely to be Stacie Saggers," Mr Nathwani said.
The court heard that in September 2019, Ms Saggers went to work as a house cleaner and left Mr Pallant in charge of her two children.
The jury was told that the accused man had moved into the family home just 24 days earlier.
The prosecutor, Mr Gibson, told the jury that Jaidyn was a "clingy" child who would "grizzle and whine" if he was not close to his mother.
"It's alleged that sometime after Ms Saggers left the home to go to this oven cleaning job in Tyabb, the accused man lost his self-control with Jaidyn and assaulted him," Mr Gibson said.
He also told the court that in the lead up to the fatal incident, Jaidyn had suffered a number of bruises which his mother believed was caused by Mr Pallant.
But Mr Nathwani said his client denied this and told the jury that Mr Pallant was the one who discovered Jaidyn's body.
"Brendan Pallant gave Jaidyn CPR," Mr Nathwani said.
Mr Nathwani said that the boy's mother, Ms Saggers, did not check on him when she returned home from work.
"Rather she had pizza and wedges in bed," he said.
"She was the last person to see Jaidyn alive."
The trial continues.
