Mission & Justice

By Katelyn John; 18/6/08

Sydney bashing victim Lauren Huxley has described being blessed by the Pope as a huge honour and a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. Just metres from the courtroom where Robert Black Farmer was last month sentenced to 24 years’ jail for her attempted murder, Ms Huxley and nine other Sydney youths today met Pope Benedict XVI during a ceremony for disadvantaged youths at Darlinghurst’s Church of the Sacred Heart. Dressed in a grey dress and black coat and supported by her father’s arm around her waist, Ms Huxley exchanged a few words with Pope Benedict and received a blessing. After the ceremony, Ms Huxley told reporters meeting the pontiff had been an “unbelievable” experience.

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Stephanie Dalzell; 14/6/08

For the first time in the 2 1/2 years since she was brutally bashed and left to die, Lauren Huxley yesterday faced her attacker - and heard a judge sentence him to 24 years in jail. Ms Huxley had her head in her hands for much of the sentencing but looked straight ahead as NSW Supreme Court judge Peter Hall jailed Robert Black Farmer for the maximum jail term for attempted murder. Farmer will serve a minimum term of 20 years. Outside court, Ms Huxley, who has no memory of the attack when she was 18, said it had been a difficult experience to confront the man who brutally bashed her. “It was hard, but I’m happy,” she said. The now 21-year-old revealed how she had summoned up the courage to finally face her attacker, saying it was for closure.

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Bellinda Kontominas; 13/6/08

Lauren Huxley may for the first time face the man who bashed her, doused her in petrol and left her to die in her home at Northmead more than two years ago. Her protective father, Pat, has said she may be present in court as her attacker, Robert Black Farmer, 39, is sentenced. But he said he would keep her away if there was any chance the two may come face to face. “I plan to go into the court first to suss out the situation and then I’ll decide if she will come in,” said Mr Huxley, who said he wanted to avoid any chance that his daughter, 21, may remember any of the attack. “I don’t want her to eyeball him or him to eyeball her,” he said.

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25/5/08

Lauren Huxley counts it a blessing that she remembers nothing about the “monster” who beat her to a pulp, doused her in petrol and left her to die. Ms Huxley, who was 18 when she was brutally attacked, says she has no memory of the 2005 incident or the man responsible, Robert Black Farmer. Farmer, 39, was convicted in the Supreme Court on May 20 of attempted murder following the savage beating unleashed on Ms Huxley inside her western Sydney home, in November 2005. “No, there’s not one thing that I can remember,” Ms Huxley has told the Nine Network in her first interview since the attack. “But I do think I’m blessed not remembering it … it is something I wouldn’t want to remember.”

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Bellinda Kontominas; 23/5/08

Travel meeting boys and nights out with friends are rites of passage in any young woman’s life. But Lauren Huxley has missed out on those crucial experiences, instead spending the past 2½ years recovering from the horrific injuries she sustained at the hands of Robert Farmer who bashed her repeatedly, doused her in petrol and set her house on fire as she lay semi-conscious in the garage of her Northmead home. Robert Black Farmer, 39, was last week found guilty of attempting to murder Ms Huxley, detaining her for advantage and damaging her home via fire. During the sentencing submissions in the Supreme Court yesterday, Ms Huxley’s older sister Simone read a victim impact statement Ms Huxley had written just days before.

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Ashleigh Wilson; 16/5/08

The family of Sydney student Lauren Huxley wants the carpenter who attacked her to “burn in hell” after he was found guilty yesterday of brutally bashing the young woman and leaving her todie. After hearing six weeks of evidence and deliberating for just three hours, a NSW Supreme Court jury found Robert Black Farmer guilty of three offences, including attempted murder, over the attack on November 9, 2005. Ms Huxley, now 21, was left clinging to life after Farmer savagely bashed her and doused her with petrol at her home in the northwest Sydney suburb of Northmead.

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Bellinda Kontominas; 6/5/08

The man accused of attempting to kill Lauren Huxley has faced a gruelling series of accusations about his alleged involvement in the attack. Cross-examined in the Supreme Court yesterday, Robert Black Farmer, 39, denied entering the Huxley home through a back door that had been left open. “The dogs barked and Lauren Huxley saw you,” the prosecutor, Christopher Maxwell, QC, said. “She got frightened and left that room. “She went into the main bedroom and tried to use the telephone and you followed her and pulled it out of the socket.”

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Geesche Jacobsen; 3/5/08

Robert Black Farmer denies he hurt Lauren Huxley, even claiming he had never met her. On the afternoon the 18-year-old TAFE student was attacked in her Northmead home, he says he was at a nearby bowling club, drinking beer and losing $900 on poker machines. The Supreme Court was told the club no longer had CCTV footage or sign-in books for November 9, 2005, the day in question. The court has heard Ms Huxley got off a bus near her home shortly after 2pm that afternoon. Farmer said he was at home that morning with his girlfriend before going to the Northmead Bowling Club about 2.30pm, where he stayed for about two hours.

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18/4/08

When Lauren Huxley was discharged from intensive care she was so badly injured she was immobile, and a full recovery remains unlikely, a court has been told. Ms Huxley, 21, suffered multiple skull fractures and was on life support for 23 days after being bashed with a pair of metal fibro cutters at her home in Northmead in November 2005. The marketing student, who was 18 at the time, was left to burn in a pool of petrol after her attacker set the house alight. Robert Black Farmer, 39, a construction worker, of Northmead, is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court for attempted murder and arson. Ms Huxley’s rehabilitation doctor, Joseph Gurka, yesterday told the jury she was “minimally responsive” when she was discharged to Westmead Hospital’s brain injury rehabilitation unit from intensive care in December 2005.

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16/4/08

Lauren Huxley nearly died after being so severely beaten that the middle of her face was completely detached from her skull, a jury has been told. The marketing student, then 18, was bashed with a pair of metal fibro cutters and left to die in the garage of her family’s Northmead home on November 9, 2005. She was doused in petrol and the house was set alight. A Northmead man, Robert Black Farmer, 39, is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court accused of her attempted murder and arson.

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