Funeral director who hoarded bodies and gave out wrong ashes jailed for 20 years

A funeral director who hoarded bodies for months and gave bereaved families the wrong ashes has been jailed for 20 years.For 12 years, Robert Bush breached the trust of his customers at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors “on an almost industrial scale” and “in a myriad of ways”, from mixing up ashes to fleecing vulnerable pensioners with fake funeral plans.On Friday, he was told by a judge that the 20-year prison term could not “put right the harm the defendant has done”.Bush hoarded bodies for months and gave bereaved families the wrong ashes (Handout/PA)PA MediaMr Justice Hilliard said even people who had used Bush’s services but were not directly involved with the case could not be sure they had been given 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.”Read MoreHe went on to say 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 motivated by “financial greed” and had a “heartless side to him too”, while Legacy’s Hessle Road premises were “dreadful”.The judge said: “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 said 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”.The judge also commented: “I do not think I have ever known offences affect so many people, and so many people so deeply.”Speaking of the families who received the wrong ashes, or none, the judge said: “How betrayed they feel – husbands and wives, partners, parents, children, grandchildren – now discovering they are left with nothing or, in some cases we heard, an empty plastic bag or a teaspoonful of ashes the police managed to recover.”Over four days, Bush, 48, looked emotionless in the dock as statements from more than 200 victims were read in court, with many who chose to read them in person breaking down in tears.One woman who was given the wrong ashes for her husband told the defendant he had fooled people in Hull with his mild manner, when in fact he was a “cruel conman who used people’s grief to fund his lifestyle”.Robert Bush has admitted multiple charges of fraud in relation to his business, Legacy Funeral Directors, in Hull (Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA)PA WireThe court heard Bush’s offending came to light in March 2024 when he was on holiday with his daughter in Arizona and asked two 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”.Police were called and searched the site, uncovering 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.The court heard the rest of the site was in a “lamentable state”, with ashes kept in mouldy boxes and even strewn across the floor, photographs left out of coffins and jewellery not returned to families.The investigation found 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 given ashes.Relatives of people whose bodies were discovered described their disgust at learning what had happened, with one daughter saying the image reminded her of Auschwitz.Officers were able to identify another 57 families who had either been given the wrong ashes or no ashes, but the court heard there was also a large quantity of unlabelled ashes at the site, and no-one who used Legacy during that time could ever know for sure if they had the right ones.Several people recounted how they had jewellery made out of the ashes, only to find out they had been carrying around “a total stranger”.The details behind Bush’s widespread practice of giving out the wrong ashes are still largely unknown, and he refused to answer questions about it when asked by police.Detective Superintendent Al Curtis said there was evidence that he was mixing up ashes and using a communal store to give out to families when they asked for their loved ones back.The court heard of several cases when Bush gave a client the wrong ashes, but collected the right 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.Police cordoned off three branches of the funeral director in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire in March 2024 (Danny Lawson/PA)PA ArchiveHe also said that all the ashes were human, although an urn given to Lucy Ness – one of four women given the wrong ashes for their unborn babies by Bush – was found to contain what are thought to be animal remains.In one police interview, Bush said he had developed a cash flow problem because “people did not always pay” and had debts of around £90,000.He said his plan had been to generate more business and clear the backlog within two to three months, but had never managed to “catch up”.Despite his debts, the court heard that Bush was “profligate” in his personal spending, and over seven years, while he was defrauding customers he spent £42,000 on holidays and £21,000 on motorcycle racing.The court heard that many of his customers were on limited budgets, with one woman describing how she had paid for her mother’s funeral partly through an online fundraising page.Bush often appeared to be helpful towards people looking for more affordable options, offering discounts and telling them it would be cheaper to use his on-site chapel.Brooke Atkinson, who had been estranged from her father before he died, 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 said they had been “conned” out of what little savings they had after being sold fake funeral plans by Bush.Over almost 12 years he sold plans to 226 people but kept the money, pocketing more than half a million pounds in the process.Bush also stole money from 12 charities by not passing on donations collected at his funeral services.He pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial and 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to bodies found at the site, four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”, a further charge of fraud covering the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, fraudulent trading relating to funeral plans between 2012 and 2024 and theft from 12 charities.