A judge’s daughter was stabbed to death by her “angry” partner before he triggered a gas explosion at their east London home, a court has heard.
Clifton George, 45, is accused of murdering 46-year-old Annabel Rook during an argument at their home in Dumont Road, Stoke Newington, on June 17 2025.
George has admitted responsibility for her death by pleading guilty to manslaughter, jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court have been told.
However the defendant denies murdering Ms Rook.
Opening the case on Wednesday, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said the stabbing happened in the midst of the couple’s crumbling relationship, and after Ms Rook had told George to leave their home.
George was witnessed carrying out the stabbing and is accused of then setting out a plan to kill himself and “explode the house”.
It is said he took a knife from the kitchen and took it to the living room to stab Ms Rook, and was described as “very angry and upset” in the aftermath.
He then started a fire in the property, setting a gas cannister alight and triggering “an enormous explosion”, causing significant damage to the home and waking up the neighbours.
He says he stabbed his partner to death after flying into a rage when he discovered she had “lied” to him.
“On the night of June 16 and 17 last year, the defendant argued with his partner Annabel Rook,” Mr Emlyn Jones told the court.
“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.
“He was undoubtedly very angry with her, and we will be at looking at why he was so angry.”
The prosecutor added: “He lost his temper, and in his rage… he murdered Annabel.”
Ms Rook, the daughter of retired Old Bailey judge Peter Rook, was the co-founder of a London-based social enterprise called MamaSuze, which supports refugee and migrant women with art and drama activities and workshops.
Mr Emlyn Jones said Ms Rook had been stabbed “a great many times” when her body was discovered after the explosion, while George “was found in the back garden, bleeding heavily and trying to stab himself with a shard of broken glass”.
The prosecutor said: “He was asked if there was anyone inside the house, and he said ‘my wife’ – but, he added, she was dead.
“When asked how he knew she was dead, he replied ‘because I killed her’.”
Mr Emlyn Jones said Ms Rook had been dead for several hours by the time she was found.
In police interview, George said he “lost it” when he found out Ms Rook had “lied to me”.
Mr Emlyn Jones told jurors: “I can tell you at the outset that the defendant does not deny that he stabbed his partner to death.
“He admits that he killed her.”
The court heard the couple never married but had been living together for just over a decade.
The prosecutor said George’s guilty plea to manslaughter has not been accepted, and he continues to be accused of murder.
He said jurors will have to determine the reason for the fatal stabbing, including an assessment of their relationship, which was “difficult at times”.
Mr Emlyn Jones said: “In the summer of 2025 it had broken down to the extent that they were heading towards a break-up.
“Annabel had told the defendant that he had to leave.
“The evidence of their relationship in the last few years of Annabel’s life will come in the form of evidence from her family, and from their friends, but also from messages and notes recovered from their telephones, which provide an accurate and contemporaneous record of what was going on as their relationship deteriorated, and how they both felt about it.”
Turning to the details of the explosion, Mr Emlyn Jones said George had opened the valve of a propane gas canister, of the type used for camping and BBQs, in the basement to “try and blow the place up”.
A fire investigator worked out after the blast that George “had tried to flick the circuit breaker switches in the basement on and off, but if this was an attempt to cause a spark to ignite the gas, it didn’t work”.
He continued: “He had left all the gas rings on and lit on the hob – but that also had not been what ignited the gas hissing out of the canister in the basement.
“In the end, the defendant had simply started a fire in the basement, probably with some burning paper which he had likely lit on the kitchen hob and then carried with him into the basement.
“It was that fire which then caused the gas from the canister to explode.
“Scorch marks to the defendant’s clothing show that he was facing away from the canister at the moment of the explosion, suggesting that he had set the fire and had turned around to move away from the basement, back towards the kitchen.
“The basement, where the explosion was, is directly underneath the living room, where Annabel Rook’s body was lying.
“The force of the blast lifted the floorboards, shifted the furniture, and caused significant damage to the property and to the house next door. It also made an almighty bang.”
Rhys Sullivan, the couple’s next door neighbour, recalls a “massive boom which felt like a mini-earthquake”, and rushed outside with partner Harriet Cosby to check what had happened.
Ms Cosby found George lying on the kitchen floor covered in blood and broken glass, while the roof of the kitchen extension had been blown off.
The court heard the neighbours shouted for George to “get out” of the house, but watched in horror as he then started to stab himself in the neck.
Mr Emlyn Jones also told jurors that the neighbours had heard three screams the previous evening.
“With the benefit of hindsight, it must be the case that what they had heard had been Annabel Rook screaming, which gives us our most accurate time for the time of the fatal assault,” he added
“The neighbours’ evidence of the screaming suggests the stabbing happened a little before 9pm that night.”
George denies murder, but has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The trial continues.
