One year on: Hannah Clarke’s mum recalls ‘surreal’ moment she heard tragic news

This Friday, February 19, will mark one year since Hannah Clarke, 31, and her three young children – Aaliyah, six, Laianah, four, and Trey, three – were tragically killed in a horrific car fire allegedly deliberately lit by her estranged husband Rowan Baxter, 42.

Hannah and the children were leaving her parents’ house in the Brisbane suburb of Camp Hill to make their way to school when she was ambushed by Rowan, who allegedly set the vehicle alight, before fatally stabbing himself at the scene on Raven Street.

Hannah was rushed to hospital after managing to climb out of the vehicle, however she sadly succumbed to her extensive injuries later the same day.

Speaking to B105’s Stav, Abby and Matt on Wednesday morning – 12 months on – Hannah’s grieving mother Sue Clarke remembered her “bubbly” daughter, who was sadly taken away far too soon.

When asked what it was like the day she found out, Sue said it was “surreal”. “Because I work just up the road, we heard all these sirens, and I was just sitting there like, ‘wonder what’s going on today?’,” she said.

Sue went on to say that, a short time later, one of her colleagues mentioned that three kids had been burnt to death in a car at Camp Hill. “I felt sick and I was like ‘no, the girls they’d be at school now’, so I rang Hannah, no answer, and I thought ‘she’d be in the middle of a gym class so that’s okay’, [and] I sent her a message.”

Sue then said the same colleague scrolled through Facebook again where a new update revealed the tragic incident had happened on Raven Street, which was where Hannah had been living with her parents.

“And then I just knew, I knew straight away,” Sue revealed. “And as I looked up, two police detectives walked in. That confirmed it before they said anything. So it was pretty horrific.”

Sue and her husband Lloyd Clarke have since set up the foundation Small Steps 4 Hannah to educate the community about coercive control.

Sue’s comments come the same day Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk appointed a taskforce of legal and domestic violence experts and victims to investigate how to legislate to criminalise coercive control. The premier made the announcement in a series of tweets this morning.

“Coercive control is a form of non-physical domestic and family violence,” she tweeted. “It includes behaviours such as controlling what someone wears, limiting access to money, tracking someone’s location, controlling who they see and persistent texting, and it can lead to physical violence.

“We’ve seen legislation against coercive control in places like the UK, and it’s important that we too have legislation in place to better protect victims.”