Hannah Clarke’s best friend warned police of fears Rowan Baxter would kill his family

In harrowing testimony, Hannah Clarke’s best friend has revealed she was so concerned about Baxter’s escalating behaviour, she told police she believed he would ‘kill them all’.

Hannah Clarke’s best friend warned police that she feared Rowan Baxter would kill his family just six days before he went on to murder them all in a horrific attack.

In a harrowing day of testimony, friends and family told of Baxter’s escalating behaviour and that they – and Hannah – believed he would lash out and kill her.

The court heard that after he doused Hannah and their children in petrol and set them alight, police discovered a chilling note to her on his phone where he warned her “I’m finishing your game” and “I’m not going to take it anymore”.

Hannah’s mother Sue Clarke bravely spoke of her “bright and bubbly” daughter who would have done anything to save her “amazing” children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3.

Hannah Clarke’s best friend Nicole Brooks (centre) leaves the inquest. Picture David Clark

An inquest into their deaths on Thursday also heard Hannah’s youngest daughter had recurring nightmares about “daddy killing mummy” and that the mother told people she “knew in her heart” she would be murdered.

Hannah’s best friend Nicole Brooks gave evidence she was so concerned for her friend’s safety that she went to the Carina police station on February 13 – days before the murders – to tell the police that she believed Baxter would kill Hannah and the children.

She said she went to police because Hannah had been telling her that she believed Baxter would kill her.

“I relayed that at the police station – (I said) he’s going to take them out,” Ms Brooks said.

She said the police told her: “We can’t really do anything until he does something” and she asked them “what if you don’t get a second chance?”.

Sue Clarke, mother of Hannah Clarke, arrives at the inquest into the murder of her daughter and her three children. Picture: Dan Peled

A tearful Sue Clarke bravely told the inquest her daughter was “bright and bubbly” and full of empathy.

She said Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey had their own individual personalities.

Aaliyah was “articulate and bright” and would fiercely stand up to her father.

“A good kid. A strong child,” Mrs Clarke said.

She said they called Laianah “Little Middle”.

“She would do silly things to make the others laugh. She was a little dynamo.”

Trey, she said, was the “apple of his mother’s eye” and was convinced he would go onto do big things in sport.

Mrs Clarke said Hannah was a “beautiful soul” who was “full of empathy”.

Mrs Clarke paid tribute to her daughter for trying to fight Baxter off to save her children as he doused them all in petrol.

Asked if there was anything she wanted to say about Hannah, Mrs Clarke said: “Just that people know she was strong.”

“(That she) loved her children and, as we saw, would have done anything, would have fought anyone, to save them.”

Friends and family painted a horrific picture of Baxter’s treatment of his wife and children.

They said he would cancel outings planned for the children to punish Hannah for not obeying him, telling them it was “Mummy’s fault” they couldn’t go.

Baxter would insist on beating them in running races and then brag about it afterwards.

Friends also told that he was exceptionally rough with them, once rugby tackling Aaliyah into an inflatable pool at full force.

On another occasion, he hit her so hard during a pillow fight that she was thrown into a door frame and “split her head open”, needing treatment in hospital.

Mrs Clarke said Baxter took away Laianah’s comfort toy the first time the children went to stay with him.

“Laianah had a little sloth … that she carried everywhere. She slept with it. Even her first day of prep, we snuck it into her school bag. It was her security,” she said.

“On her first night that she slept over at her father’s house, after they’d left, she took Slothie with her and when she got home, she didn’t have Slothie.

Mrs Clarke said when they called Baxter and asked if they could come and collect it, he refused to hand it over.

“He wouldn’t return it … and she never got it back. We had to buy her another,” she said.

The court also heard on Valentine’s Day 2020, Baxter breached a court order to go the girls’ school where he bought chocolates for Laianah but not for Aaliyah.

“(Hannah) was very angry, she was heartbroken for Aaliyah because it compounded the favouritism he had displayed to Laianah over Aaliyah,” Hannah’s friend Lynne Kershaw said.

The inquest heard after the murders, police discovered a chilling note on Baxter’s iPhone that he’d started writing on January 26.

Hannah Clarke’s friend Lynne Kershaw. Picture: Dan Peled

It had last been edited about two weeks before the murders on February 19, 2020.

“I’m finishing your game,” he wrote. “I don’t want to play anymore. This was never, ever my intention.

“You can’t f … with someone’s life like this and expect them just to take it. I can tell you, no more Hannah, no more …

“I’m not going to take it anymore Hannah. Do you know how hard it is to go to bed every night without your children? I wish you had have just tried.

“I have told the kids that you loved them. They will miss you, I’m sure.

“You destroyed my life and I cannot move on. I hope this was all worth it for you and your family.

“Now that you have no-one to control it, you’re a strong girl. You’ll be fine.”

Baxter had signed the note, “Ro, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey.”

In the years and months before the murders, friends had witnessed Baxter acting forceful with Hannah at the gym and said he would tear her down if she ever performed well with a fitness challenge.

He would post about her on the gym’s social media page, accusing her of cheating.

Ms Kershaw told the court that Baxter had told Hannah that if his ex-partner had taken his son from him, he would have taken the boy and killed him.

Ms Kershaw, who attended the gym that Hannah and Baxter ran, said gym-goers knew that Saturday morning classes with Baxter would be difficult because he was generally in a bad mood.

She said she later learned that Baxter would drink on Friday nights and demand sex from Hannah – threatening to kill himself if she failed to obey.

“If she refused, he would say, I might as well kill myself,” Ms Kershaw said.

Hannah Clarke and her son Trey.

She told the court an intoxicated Baxter would get a length of hose, get in his car and drive off.

Mrs Clarke also revealed Baxter had at first worked hard to win her and husband Lloyd over but he became rude and cruel after Aaliyah, their first child, was born.

“He would belittle me in front of people at the gym, he would call me names, he would say nobody asked you to be here,” she said.

“He treated me terribly, he disliked me immensely,” she said.

Mrs Clarke recalled on one occasion when Baxter was supporting her during an exercise at the gym and he dropped her, causing her to split open her face.

“He laughed at me and told me to harden up, that it happens all the time if you play football,” she said.

“He lacked empathy with everybody.”

The inquest continues.