Funeral director who saved useless child in paper bag learns destiny for hoarding our bodies
Robert Bush, 48, was jailed for 20 years after hoarding bodies for months and giving bereaved families the wrong ashes at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull
Robert Bush is being sentenced
A funeral director who stockpiled corpses for months and handed grieving families the wrong ashes has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars. For 12 years, Robert Bush vbroke the trust of his clients at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors “on an almost industrial scale” and “in a myriad of ways”, from mixing up ashes to swindling vulnerable pensioners with bogus funeral schemes.
On Friday, he was informed by a judge that the 20-year prison sentence could not “put right the harm the defendant has done”. Mr Justice Hilliard stated that even individuals who had used Bush’s services but weren’t directly connected to the case couldn’t be certain they had received their loved one’s ashes.
He said: “Unless a body was one of those actually recovered by the police in 2024, and was properly identified, no-one who had a cremation at Legacy at any time can actually know for certain whether they received the right ashes for their loved one, whether or not their case features on the indictment.”
Court artist drawing of funeral director Robert Bush(Image: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)
He continued by saying Bush was “so pre-occupied with his own enrichment that he behaved in a shocking and disgraceful way towards the deceased entrusted to his care, and his behaviour towards their living relatives was characterised by dishonesty, deception and heartlessness”.
Bush was driven by “financial greed” and possessed a “heartless side to him too”, while Legacy’s Hessle Road premises were “dreadful”.
The judge remarked: “If he could re-use a coffin someone had already paid for, he would do so.
“If it was cheaper to keep someone in non-refrigerated conditions, he would do that too.”
The judge stated that the dignity denied to the deceased by Robert Bush “is more than made up for by the dignity with which the relatives have conducted themselves on their behalf in these proceedings”.
Police outside the Anlaby Road branch of Legacy(Image: Danny Lawson/PA Wire)
Over a four-day period, Bush, 48, remained impassive in the dock as statements from over 200 victims were read out in court, with many who chose to deliver them personally breaking down in tears.
One woman, who received the wrong ashes for her husband, told the defendant that he had deceived people in Hull with his gentle demeanour, when in reality he was a “cruel conman who used people’s grief to fund his lifestyle”.
The court heard that Bush’s crimes came to light in March 2024 when he was holidaying with his daughter in Arizona and asked two directors of another funeral firm to assist with a body recovery in his absence.
A casual worker at Legacy unexpectedly informed the two men that bodies had been at the site “for years”.
Police were summoned and searched the site, discovering a “shocking” scene where decomposing bodies had been left on the racks of a cold storage area, with the remains of a foetus contained in a paper bag on the floor.
Police outside the Hessle Road branch of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors(Image: Danny Lawson/PA Wire)
The court heard that the rest of the site was in a “lamentable state”, with ashes stored in mouldy boxes and even scattered across the floor, photographs left out of coffins and jewellery not returned to families.
The probe revealed that 31 bodies, including that of unborn baby Sunny Beverley-Conlin, should have been cremated months earlier, and most of their families had already been handed ashes.
Relatives of people whose bodies were found expressed their revulsion at discovering what had occurred, with one daughter saying the scene brought back memories of Auschwitz.
Officers managed to identify another 57 families who had either received the wrong ashes or no ashes at all, but the court heard there was also a substantial amount of unlabelled ashes at the premises, meaning no-one who used Legacy during that period could ever be certain if they had the correct ones.
Robert Bush was jailed for 20 years
Several people told how they had jewellery crafted from the ashes, only to discover they had been carrying around “a total stranger”.
The circumstances behind Bush’s extensive practice of distributing the wrong ashes remain largely mysterious, and he declined to answer questions about it when questioned by police.
Detective Superintendent Al Curtis said there was evidence that he was confusing ashes and using a shared stockpile to distribute to families when they requested their loved ones back.
The court heard of numerous instances when Bush handed a client the incorrect ashes, but collected the correct ones from the crematorium as little as two days later.
In his police interviews he said: “I’ve never given ashes back that weren’t ashes,” but refused to go into any further detail. He also claimed that all the ashes were human, although an urn given to Lucy Ness – one of four women handed the incorrect ashes for their unborn babies by Bush – was found to contain what are believed to be animal remains.
A member of the public outside Hull Crown Court
In a police interview, Bush admitted he had run into cash flow issues because “people did not always pay” and had debts totalling around £90,000.
His strategy had been to drum up more business and clear the backlog within two to three months, but he never managed to “catch up”.
Despite his financial woes, the court heard that Bush was “profligate” in his personal spending. Over seven years, while he was defrauding customers, he splashed out £42,000 on holidays and £21,000 on motorcycle racing.
The court was told that many of his customers were on tight budgets, with one woman recounting how she had funded her mother’s funeral partly through an online fundraising page.
Bush often seemed to be accommodating towards those seeking more affordable options, offering discounts and suggesting it would be cheaper to use his on-site chapel.
Brooke Atkinson, who had been estranged from her father before his death, said Bush “could sense they hadn’t arranged a funeral” and accused him of “picking the most vulnerable of society”.
The court also heard from pensioners who claimed they had been “conned” out of their meagre savings after being sold bogus funeral plans by Bush.
Over a period of nearly 12 years, he sold plans to 226 individuals but pocketed the money himself, amassing over half a million pounds in the process.
Bush also pilfered funds from 12 charities by failing to pass on donations collected at his funeral services.
He admitted guilt to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial and 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to bodies discovered at the site, four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he handed ashes to women falsely claiming they were “the remains of their unborn”, an additional charge of fraud covering the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans between 2012 and 2024, and theft from 12 charities.
