Sarah Huggett appointed first female NSW District Court chief judge
Sarah Huggett, who last year oversaw the carnal knowledge trial of convicted wife-killer Chris Dawson, will become the first female chief judge of the NSW District Court.
NSW Supreme Court justice Sarah Huggett will become the first female chief judge of the NSW District Court, in an appointment that has been celebrated as “richly deserving”.
Having served on the District Court bench for more than a decade before being appointed to the Supreme Court last year, Judge Huggett has a long history of presiding over complex criminal matters, including various child sexual abuse cases.
Last year she oversaw the carnal knowledge trial of convicted wife-killer Christopher Dawson, ultimately finding he had an unlawful sexual relationship with a teenager and saying he used a degree of manipulation and exploitation to breach the girl’s trust in the 1980s.
Judge Huggett joined the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1993 and was the DPP’s sole instructing solicitor in the prosecution of serial killer Ivan Milat.
She also recently sentenced swim teacher Paul Douglas Frost to a maximum jail sentence of 32 years after he was found to have groomed and sexually abused 11 young students over more than a decade.
“I am delighted to appoint Judge Sarah Huggett to the role of Chief Judge of the District Court of NSW. She makes history by becoming the first female Chief Judge and she is richly deserving of that honour,” NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley said of the appointment.
“Both as a Crown Prosecutor and whilst at the District Court, Justice Huggett prosecuted and presided over a large number of complex sexual assault matters including those involving child complainants. Judge Huggett is well respected by both her peers and the community and I congratulate her warmly on her new role.”
Sworn in as a District Court judge on 15 October 2012, Judge Huggett served as the Court’s representative on the Consent Monitoring and Advisory Group and Chair of the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Program Steering Committee.
She was one of the first judges of the District Court’s Walama List, a trial of alternative sentencing procedures aimed at reducing the incarceration of, and reoffending by, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
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