Daughter told her judge father that killer was furious with her

A judge’s daughter told her father she was ‘very anxious’ to be around her partner as he was ‘furious’ with her just days before he killed her, a court heard.

Clifton George, 45, is accused of murdering Annabel Rook, 46, during an argument at their home in Stoke Newington, north London, on June 17 last year.

He allegedly took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed Ms Rook to death before blowing their house up with a gas canister.

Ms Rook was the daughter of respected Old Bailey judge Peter Rook and founder of social enterprise MamaSuze, which supports refugee and vulnerable women through community events in London.

George admits arson and manslaughter of Ms Rook but denies murdering her.

The couple had been having relationship difficulties and Ms Rook had asked George to move out of the home for a trial separation days before he killed her.

In an email to her father on 31 May, she said she had made up her mind to separate from George.

She wrote: ‘Clifton is furious with me.

‘I’m very anxious and don’t want to be around Clifton at all.

‘Please don’t message me or call, I will call you when I can tomorrow.’

She went on to say she would ‘get through this’ because she was ‘strong’, and stressed she could not leave the home she shared with George because she did not want to leave their children.

On the same day she confessed to a friend that it was all getting ‘too much’ for her to cope with and she ‘feared’ her partner was going to give her ‘a piece of his mind’.

Jurors were played voice messages George sent to a friend around the same time, in which he complained that Ms Rook was a ‘massive liar’

He said in a voicenote: ‘I came towards her in the garden…I’m fuming… and she flinched, it was like over the top acting.

‘She said ‘you got an angry face’.

‘I’ve never raised my hand to you, don’t turn this around into something.

‘She’ll play the victim card and I just cannot be bothered with it.

‘She will eavesdrop, she’s a massive liar.

Clifton resisted Ms Rook’s suggestion that they should see a psychotherapist, and told his friend he didn’t want his childhood’ to be blamed for their relationship problems, the court heard.

The trial continues.