Murdered charity worker Annabel Rook spelled out in a heartbreaking letter how she lived in fear of her abusive partner’s temper
Murdered charity worker Annabel Rook spelled out in a heartbreaking letter how she lived in fear of her abusive partner’s temper and wanted to end their 10-year relationship.
The 46-year-old wrote to partner Clifton George, saying they did not make each other happy any more and telling him: “However hard I tried, I seemed to make you angry.”
But Ms Rook’s letter was never sent, and was only discovered by police on her laptop after she had been beaten, throttled, and stabbed to death by George in the living room of their Stoke Newington home. On Tuesday, George was found guilty by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court of murdering Ms Rook on the night of June 16 last year.
Damning evidence was aired during the four-week trial detailing George’s short temper, his tendency to get angry at trivial things, and incidents when he had verbally and physically attacked Ms Rook.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said the unsent letter was “a heartbreaking description of a woman reluctantly letting go of her dream of a happy life with her partner. It is not angry, or hurtful – it is expressed as an attempt to be reasonable and accepting that the relationship just isn’t going to work.”
In the letter, she suggested a separation and wrote: “A year ago we came to the decision we weren’t making each other happy. Somehow love wasn’t enough. We couldn’t reach each other.” She added: “My heart is broken.”
In 2024, George had angrily turned on Ms Rook at Glastonbury Festival after getting into a drunken row with one of their friends. Ms Rook said in her letter that “something inside of me snapped”, and she wrote to her partner: “I couldn’t deal with our misunderstandings anymore. I couldn’t deal with feeling like I couldn’t be myself in case I said something that upset you. However hard I tried, I seemed to make you angry.”
Ms Rook, a respected charity worker who is the daughter of a retired Old Bailey judge, set out that she felt “lonely” in the relationship and unable to be true to herself.
In another note that she had written to herself, Ms Rook described sitting in the spare room while trying to avoid a bout of George’s anger over domestic chores.
“You are raging downstairs, emptying the bins with fury, the bins I’ve not emptied, the mess I’ve created”, she wrote. “I don’t want to be around you – you are so unkind to me. It is the third time in three days you gaslight me and shouted me down. Mostly I don’t want you hurting me anymore.”
When she was killed, Ms Rook had told George they should separate and made it clear he should move out of their home in Dumont Road, Stoke Newington.
George, an electrician, claimed at trial that he was not short-tempered, and attempted to place the blame for the stabbing on Ms Rook, suggesting he had “lost it” when she pushed him in the face.
However, Ms Rook’s friends and family gave evidence to show that George had a “short fuse” and had shown himself to be quick to anger, while Ms Rook described herself as “walking on eggshells” around him.
In February 2023, she had tearfully told her father, Judge Peter Rook, that she was considering leaving George, calling him a bully and fearing “he would never change”.
Just days before her death, Ms Rook left her sister a message after she and George had argued and she concluded the relationship was “not tenable”.
“I fear there will be some more wrath to come”, she said, revealing it is “not a nice place to be”. “I will get through this and will be stronger for it out the other side”, she said as she signed off the message, on June 1 2025.
But in a sign of Ms Rook’s kind nature, the court also heard evidence that she intended to give £50,000 to George to help him find a new home and harboured hopes that he would continue to join her on Rook family holidays in the future.
In a ruling to withdraw George’s right to claim loss of self-control as a defence to murder, Mr Justice Constable KC said the evidence had revealed that he is prone to “becoming extremely and disproportionately angry and aggressive, often at minor or petty things”.
“The evidence was overwhelming,” he said. “It came from direct testimony from witnesses who had both experienced that anger directly, and to whom it was regularly reported by Annabel Rook.”
He set out that the only possible conclusion from the evidence was that George was capable of “unreasonable flashing rage anger”, and the murder of his partner had come during an “extreme loss of temper”.
Peter Rook, Annabel’s father, added: “Annabel was a truly wonderful woman. One of the world’s life enhancers. Above all else, she was a much loved mother devoted to her two fine sons. She was also a superb daughter, sister and, for so many, a close friend. Ironically, she was at the height of her powers in her tireless work to help vulnerable women.
“She had so much more to give. At least now there’s been justice. But nothing will bring her back. We can be sure that her spirit will continue to inspire so many. During the trial, it has been almost unbearable hearing the years she herself suffered abuse and then the nature of the horrendous attack. It was clear on the evidence that until the very end, she was incredibly courageous, trying to help others rather than safeguarding herself.
“She dedicated her life to helping others. She worked in refugee camps and schools. She co-founded MamaSuze to provide creativity and support for refugee women. She lived 46 altruistic years in which she gave so much to so many. We know that it would have been Annabel’s wish that her life should not be defined by her tragic death, but by the rich legacy of love and support for the vulnerable.”
