A UK funeral director who left families grieving over strangers’ ashes and bodies stored for months has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
For more than a decade, Robert Bush abused the faith placed in him by customers of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, violating that trust “on an almost industrial scale” and “in a myriad of ways”, the court heard. His crimes ranged from mishandling ashes to selling fake funeral plans to vulnerable pensioners.
Sentencing him today, a judge said no prison term could truly “put right the harm the defendant has done”.
Mr Justice Hilliard said the damage reached beyond those named in the case, warning that even families who had used Bush’s services but were not directly involved could not know with certainty whether they had received their loved one’s ashes.
Families involved in the case, outside Hull Crown Court, Kingston-upon-Hull
Mr Justice Hilliard said Bush had become “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”.
The judge said Bush was driven by “financial greed” and showed a “heartless side to him too”, describing Legacy’s Hessle Road premises as “dreadful”.
“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,” he said.
Mr Justice Hilliard said the dignity denied to the dead 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”.
Familes’ not sure if they received the correct ashes
Across four days of hearings, the court heard statements from more than 200 victims.
One woman, who discovered she had been given the wrong ashes for her husband, told Bush he had deceived people across Hull with his gentle manner, while in truth he was a “cruel conman who used people’s grief to fund his lifestyle”.
A courtroom sketch depicts Robert Bush who pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial and 30 counts of fraud by false representation
Bush’s offending was exposed in March 2024 while he was on holiday in Arizona with his daughter, after he asked two directors from another funeral firm to assist with recovering a body during his absence, the court heard.
A casual worker at Legacy then told the two men, “out of the blue”, that bodies had been kept at the premises “for years”.
Police were alerted and searched the site, where they found a “shocking” scene: decomposing bodies left on racks in a cold storage area.
The rest of the premises were in a “lamentable state”, the court heard, with ashes kept in mouldy conditions, photographs left out of coffins and jewellery not returned to relatives.
Investigators found 31 bodies, including that of an unborn baby, that should have been cremated months earlier. Most of their families had already been handed ashes.
Police identified a further 57 families who had either received the wrong ashes or no ashes at all. But the court also heard there was a large amount of unlabelled ashes at the premises, meaning nobody who used Legacy during that period could ever be certain they had the correct remains.
Several victims described having jewellery made from ashes, only to later learn they had been carrying around “a total stranger”.
Bush also stole money from 12 charities by not passing on donations collected at his funeral services
The full explanation for Bush’s routine handing out of incorrect ashes remains unclear, as he refused to answer police questions about the practice.
Detective Superintendent Al Curtis said evidence showed Bush had been mixing up ashes and drawing from a communal store when families asked for their loved ones’ remains.
The court was told that in several cases, Bush gave clients the wrong ashes, then collected the correct ashes from the crematorium as little as two days later.
During police interviews, he said, “I’ve never given ashes back that weren’t ashes,” but declined to explain further.
He also claimed all of the ashes were human, although an urn given to one mother was found to contain what are believed to be animal remains.
Four women received the wrong ashes for their unborn babies.
In one police interview, Bush said he had run into cash flow problems because “people did not always pay” and said he had debts of about £90,000.
He claimed he intended to bring in more business and clear the backlog within two to three months, but said he had never managed to “catch up”.
Despite those debts, the court heard Bush was “profligate” in his own spending. Over seven years, while defrauding customers, he spent £42,000 on holidays and £21,000 on motorcycle racing.
Many of his customers were living on tight budgets, the court heard, including one woman who said she helped pay for her mother’s funeral through an online fundraising page.
