Georgia Larsen’s parents hug driver as they meet him in prison after he crashed car killing daughter

A family whose teenage daughter was killed when her unlicensed boyfriend crashed their car confronted the driver in prison – before breaking down and hugging him.

Tracy and Shannon Larsen had been grappling with grief since losing their 15-year-old daughter Georgia in a car crash in February 2018.

Her boyfriend Joshua Lewis was a learner driver and decided to drive her to school when their vehicle hit a tree at Longwarry, south-east of Melbourne. 

A family whose teenage daughter (pictured, Georgia) was killed when her unlicensed boyfriend crashed their car confronted the driver in prison before breaking down and hugging him

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Tracy and Shannon Larsen (pictured) had been grappling with unending grief since losing their 15-year-old daughter Georgia in the car crash in February 2018

Georgia suffered head injuries and died in hospital and Lewis received a four-year sentence that was to be served in a youth justice centre.

Tracy and Shannon said they felt ‘nothing’ and were left unfulfilled by the sentencing so they decided to face Lewis in jail in December, 2020.

The couple only recently opened up about their experiences revealing how they were finally able to ask him the questions they had been wanting to ask for years

‘As soon as my husband saw him, he just hugged him. It’s something I will never, never forget,’ Ms Larsen told ABC.

The couple had been preparing for the moment for some time after learning about restorative justice program Open Circle.

The program seeks to rehabilitate offenders through reconciliation with victims and, in some cases, puts them face to face with each other.

Ms Larsen described the lead-up to the meeting as daunting but said the meeting gave her the feeling she finally had a voice in the matter.

‘It gave us the power to ask the questions we wanted to in our way, and for him to understand the impact that it had,’ she said. 

Lewis was left speechless when the forgiving Larsens said they wished the best for him

The Larsens spoke with Lewis for two-and-a-half hours with the conversation also allowing Lewis to share his gnawing guilt, the ABC reported.

He read aloud from a letter saying ‘how sorry’ he felt for causing the accident and took sole responsibility for it.

Lewis was left speechless when the forgiving Larsens said they wished the best for him.

‘That was like a big thing for me, that OK, maybe my life isn’t worthless,’ he told the public broadcaster.

Lewis had lied about having a provisional licence when he drove the car on the day it veered off the road and killed Georgia.

County Court Judge Mark Gamble sentenced Lewis to a youth justice centre saying he was too psychologically vulnerable for an adult prison. 

He served 18 months before he was later released.