Disgraced funeral director Robert Bush has been jailed for 20 years in a case in which more than 200 victims described the devastating impact of his crimes.
Bush, 48, was jailed as Hull Crown Court for 67 offences, including 30 counts of preventing a lawful burial.
He breached the trust of grieving families “on an almost industrial scale” by keeping bodies for months after they should have been cremated, giving out the wrong ashes, taking money for funeral plans without making any arrangements, and stealing charity donations collected at services.
He was sentenced on Friday for offences spanning 12 years at his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull. Mr Justice Hilliard said he would serve half of his sentence before being released on parole. Although there were proposals to reduce this to one third, this has been “paused”, he said.
The judge said that in the cases of 57 families who were given the wrong ashes or no ashes, about 40 of the deceased were kept for longer than a month before being cremated, including more than 200 days in one case.
He said that boxes of ashes were found in many areas of Bush’s premises and there appeared to be no proper system to record where they were: “The majority of the remains were stored in an undignified manner and the identification of remains was wholly inadequate.”
Telling Hull Crown Court about the terrible scenes police found at Legacy’s Hessle Road premises, he described how there were bodies on racks, two more lying on the floor and evidence of human putrefaction as well as excrement on the floor of a toilet. Adding: “The conditions were dreadful.”
The judge said these details have been “traumatic in the extreme” for the families.
Bush had told police he had been having issues with the refrigeration equipment and he could save money by not running all units.“I have no doubt there was plenty of money… if he had only chosen to apply it in that way,” Mr Justice Hilliard said.
He added that what the dead lacked in dignity at the hands of Robert Bush “is more than made up for by the dignity with which the relatives have conducted themselves on their behalf in these proceedings”.
Hull Crown Court heard that there were no sentencing guidelines and no maximum penalty for the offence of preventing a lawful burial, which accounted for 30 of the charges, and previous cases did not reflect what Bush was doing.
Over four days, the court heard more than 200 statements from victims, with many choosing to read theirs in person and breaking down in tears.
They included relatives of 31 people found at Legacy whose bodies should have been cremated, including the mother of an unborn baby who was found in a paper bag on the floor.
open image in galleryThe judge also heard from more than 50 people who found out they had been given the wrong ashes for their loved ones when police raided the funeral home and found urns and packaging labelled with their names.
The court heard that Bush’s offending came to light in March 2024 when he was on holiday in Arizona and asked the directors of another funeral firm to help with a body recovery while he was away.
A casual worker at Legacy told the two men “out of the blue” that bodies had been at the site “for years” and described it as “a horror scene”.
The men alerted the police, who searched the premises and found bodies stored on the racks of a cold storage area, with the vast majority “uncovered and in varying states of decomposition”.
open image in galleryThe court heard the rest of the site was in a “lamentable state”, with ashes in mouldy boxes and even strewn across the floor, photographs left out of coffins and jewellery not returned to families.
An investigation found that Bush had sold fraudulent funeral plans to more than 220 people, pocketing more than £500,000 in the process.
Some of those affected gave statements to the court, describing how he had conned them out of their savings and left them without the safety net of knowing their funerals had been paid for.
The court heard that Bush stole money from 12 charities by not passing on donations collected at services, including the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, Help for Heroes, the RNLI and some local groups.
open image in galleryAn investigation into his finances revealed that over seven years when he was defrauding his customers, Bush spent £42,000 on holidays, £21,000 on motorcycle racing and £17,400 on home improvements.
Richard Wright KC, mitigating, said Bush had prioritised himself and his family over his customers, and was now treated as a “pariah – hated and despised”.
In April, Bush pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial, and theft from the 12 charities.
He had already admitted 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to bodies found at the site, and four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”.
Bush also pleaded guilty to a further charge of fraud, covering the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, and one of fraudulent trading relating to funeral plans between 2012 and 2024.
Prime Minister backs calls for regulation of funeral home sector
The sentencing comes as Andy Burnham backed the regulation of funeral homes and mortuaries.
The Prime Minister offered his sympathies to the families of victims of Robert Bush.
A separate independent inquiry into the crimes of David Fuller, who abused at least 100 dead women and girls in hospital mortuaries in south-east England, recommended regulation of the funeral sector to prevent similar crimes being committed again.
Speaking on a visit to Sheffield, Mr Burnham said: “I do back those calls, and there were recommendations in the Fuller Report that will be implemented because we have seen appalling situations like this before.
“I feel for the families and I know it’ll be a difficult day for them with these matters in court again. I was truly horrified when I heard what had happened. Appalling for any family to go through that. This needs a proper response in terms of the regulation needed, to make sure no family goes through that again.
“People, I think, would assume that the highest standards apply to this area and we’ve got to make sure that they do apply and that there can’t be any repeat of what we’ve seen.”