Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Lauren Huxley – Lauren Huxley was an 18-year-old TAFE student when she was savagely beaten by a stranger and left to die in her suburban home.
“It’s been 20 years but you don’t really ever forget. You never get over it.”
– Christine Huxley, Lauren’s mother.
Doctors put her in an induced coma and expected her to die.
But miraculously, the teenager pulled through and managed to learn to walk, talk and eat again.
That incident 20 years ago, the manhunt that followed and her incredible recovery, kept Lauren’s face in the newspapers and on our TV screens for years.
“She survived with her own courage and her own determination but a family the likes of which I’ve never come across,”
– says journalist Ray Martin, who reported on the story at the time.
Now Lauren and her family are confronting a new fear.
Her convicted assailant, Robert Black Farmer, who never pleaded guilty, will be eligible for parole next year.
“That is always very confronting for victims and their families, particularly in situations where there’s been no remorse, there’s been no contrition,”
– says the detective who investigated the case, Det Supt Jason Dickinson.
“It is a little bit of a concern and worry,”
– says Lauren,
“because he nearly took my life; he nearly killed me.”
As Farmer nears the end of his sentence, Lauren, her family and the police who investigated the case look back on a crime that changed them forever.
This is a powerful story about the lingering effects of trauma, the power of love and family and surviving against the odds.
Producers: Tracey Kirkland and Olivia Rousset.
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview – Monday 27 October 2025 at 8:00pm
Media Release – ABC
TV Central ABC content HERE
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Lauren Huxley
