Sarah Huggett was born in Moree, one of eight children and the daughter of a police officer.[1][2] She has a BA from Macquarie University and graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in law in 1991.[1] Huggett completed a Master of Laws in 1995.[1][3]
Huggett was appointed to the District Court of New South Wales in October 2012, working on the Criminal Trial Bench for twelve years.[1][4] She oversaw a number of complex criminal cases, including many child sexual abuses cases.[5] She was one of the judges on the court's Walama List, a trial of alternative sentencing procedures seeking to reduce Indigenous Australian incarceration.[1][2] She was the Court's representative on the Consent Monitoring and Advisory Group Meeting and Chair of the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Program Steering Committee.[6][4][5] She has said that lengthy sentences for sexual offences are "designed to punish the offender, denounce their conduct, protect the community and recognise the harm done to the victims".[7][8]
Huggett was instructing solicitor to the DPP in the prosecution of Ivan Milat.[1][2] She presided over the judge-only trial of convicted murderer Chris Dawson for carnal knowledge of a student in 2023.[2][6][10] She imposed a maximum sentence of 32 years imprisonment on former MasterChef Australia contestant Paul Frost for child sexual offences.[11] In 2023, she acquitted Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka of rape through the act of stealthing in another judge alone trial.[12]