An electrician who stabbed his partner to death in a frenzied rage before blowing up their home in a gas explosion has been found guilty of murder.
Clifton George killed his partner Annabel Rook by stabbing her 31 times during a row at their east London home after she had said they should end their 10-year relationship. He then started a fire in the basement to cause a gas canister explosion, which ripped through the house.
George, 45, who had worked as an electrician on major transport projects such as Crossrail and the Northern Line extension, denied murder, arguing that he had lost self-control when he punched, throttled and ultimately stabbed his partner.
But by the end of the trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the judge, Mr Justice Constable KC, ruled that his defence could not be relied on, thanks to “overwhelming” evidence of George’s short temper and a pattern of abuse directed towards Ms Rook.
The trial heard damning evidence that George, contrary to his denials, was an aggressive and bullying partner who was prone to angry outbursts over trivial matters.
Ms Rook, 46, a charity co-founder and the daughter of retired Old Bailey judge Peter Rook, had said repeatedly she was going to leave her volatile partner, but tragically did not follow through on the promise. On Wednesday, a jury found George guilty of murder after deliberating for two and a half hours.
George nodded slightly in the dock as the guilty verdict was delivered, but showed little emotion, while friends of Ms Rook broke down in tears in the public gallery.
Police and firefighters arrived at the couple’s home in Dumont Road, Stoke Newington, at just before 5am on 17 June last year after an explosion – likened by one neighbour to a “mini earthquake” – ripped through the property and blew off part of the roof.
George was found lying on the kitchen floor covered in blood and then tried to stab himself with a shard of broken glass while Ms Rook lay dead in the living room. In the aftermath of his attack he admitted “I lost it”, and the trial heard how George had been furious with his partner for keeping a secret from him.
In his defence, George insisted he did not have a “short fuse”, but friends and family of Ms Rook gave contradicting evidence.
Ms Rook’s best friend, Sian Davin, told jurors she believed George needed therapy for his anger and described an incident when he pushed Ms Rook against a wall and grabbed her around the throat. She said he had “unreasonable flashing rage anger” at times, would fat-shame and gaslight Ms Rook, and possessed a “tendency to overreact about small, trivial things”.
Daniel Varani, a former flatmate of Ms Rook, described the joy of their time living together but said he decided to move out shortly after George moved in, due to his “angry outbursts”.
The court heard of an incident in 2024 when George stormed out of the Glastonbury Festival after rowing with one of Ms Rook’s friend and then drunkenly haranguing his partner.
In another incident, George had flown into a rage when Ms Rook washed his chef’s knives and left them to drip-dry instead of immediately putting them away.
In 2023, Ms Rook tearfully confided in her father about George’s short temper, saying living with him was like “walking on eggshells” and first mentioning the possibility of a break-up.
She told her close friend Catherine Milne about the relationship difficulties while insisting there had been no violence and saying: “I don’t think he would do that.”
Ms Davin said her friend had acknowledged by summer 2024 that the relationship was “abusive” and a couple of weeks before her death Ms Rook left her sister a message saying the relationship was “not tenable”. “I fear there will be some more wrath to come,” she said, but she went on to predict they would “get through this and will be stronger for it out the other side”.
Before the fatal stabbing, Ms Rook had told George that they should separate and that he should move out of their home, which she owned. Although under no legal obligation, Ms Rook had decided to give George £50,000 to help him find a new home and she also had hopes that they would holiday together in the future.
On the night of the murder, George had been drinking red wine and got into an argument with Ms Rook about a secret she had been keeping from him.
“In the course of that argument he punched her, he then tried to strangle her, and then he went to the kitchen to get a knife. He came back with the knife and he stabbed her to death,” said William Emlyn Jones KC, prosecuting. “He lost his temper, and in his rage he murdered Annabel.”
George, who had been heard crying out “she lied” repeatedly as he mounted the attack, claimed he had lost all self-control and had little memory of the stabbing, but in a ruling on Monday, the judge concluded that his defence could not be left to the jury.
Judge Constable highlighted that George had stopped mid-attack to arm himself with a knife, which was a deliberate action “plainly inconsistent with a loss of control” and he found there was “overwhelming evidence” of George’s short temper and bouts of anger.
“The only possible conclusion on the evidence is that Clifton George was clearly ready and capable of unreasonable flash rage anger,” he said.
In the aftermath of the murder, George slit his wrists and then triggered the gas explosion, but survived the blast.
Ms Rook’s family and friends, including her father, packed the public gallery throughout the trial and listened to George, in his evidence, trying to paint Ms Rook as the abuser in the relationship. He claimed she had bullied him over his childhood traumas of finding his infant sister dead in her cot and being taken into care after violent abuse by his mother. George claimed the fatal stabbing had happened after Ms Rook had provoked him and pushed his face.
In the days after her death, there was an outpouring of tributes for Ms Rook, co-founder of the MamaSuze charity which supports refugee and migrant women, some who had fled domestic violence, through art and drama activities.
“She touched the hearts of so many,” her family said, in a statement. “She gave her life to helping the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.”
George, who has been in custody since the murder, will be sentenced on June 9. After he was taken to the cells, the judge praised Ms Rook’s family and friends for their composure while listening to the trial evidence.
