{"id":618815,"date":"2026-06-03T11:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618815\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:46:08","slug":"electrician-guilty-of-murdering-partner-and-blowing-up-their-london-home-uk-criminal-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618815\/","title":{"rendered":"Electrician guilty of murdering partner and blowing up their London home | UK criminal justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who fatally stabbed his partner and then set off a gas explosion at their north-east London<\/a> home last summer has been found guilty of her murder.<\/p>\n

Clifton George, 45, had denied murdering Annabel Rook, a 46-year-old charity founder, during an argument at their home in Stoke Newington, on 17 June 2025. He admitted her manslaughter.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, at the end of a four-week trial, the jury at Snaresbrook crown court convicted George of murder.<\/p>\n

Annabel Rook had worked on creating safehouses for women. Photograph: Metropolitan Police\/PA<\/p>\n

The court heard how George had punched and tried to strangle Rook during an argument. He then repeatedly stabbed her with a kitchen knife, the prosecution said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lost his temper, and in his rage \u2026 he murdered Annabel,\u201d William Emlyn Jones KC, prosecuting, told the court.<\/p>\n

Rook, who had worked on creating safehouses for women fleeing violence and co-founded MamaSuze, which support refugee women, was stabbed at least 22 times, including through the heart, the court was told.<\/p>\n

George, an electrician, then opened the valve of a propane gas canister, left all the gas rings on in the house, and started a fire in the basement, jurors were told.<\/p>\n

The resulting explosion \u201cmade an almighty bang\u201d and lifted floorboards, shifted furniture and caused significant damage to the property and to the house next door, the court heard.<\/p>\n

In a police interview, George said he had \u201clost it\u201d when Rook said their 10-year relationship was over.<\/p>\n

His lawyers ran a defence of loss of self-control. On Tuesday, Judge Constable KC told jurors that George could not rely under law on that defence.<\/p>\n

George will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who fatally stabbed his partner and then set off a gas explosion at their north-east London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}