A funeral director who failed to bury or cremate people and gave bereaved relatives the ashes of strangers has been jailed for 20 years.
Some 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes were found by police raiding Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull in March 2024.
Former undertaker Robert Bush admitted 67 offences, including denying 30 people a decent and proper burial, fraud, and theft from 12 charities, over a period of 12 years.
Sentencing him at Hull Crown Court, Judge Justice Hilliard told the former undertaker he had “caused anguish and pain on a scale beyond comprehension”.
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The court heard Bush defrauded nearly 200 families out of £500,000 and had acted out of “financial greed”.
Hilliard warned that no-one who had used Legacy’s cremations services “at any time can be absolutely certain they received the ashes of their loved one”.
“He must have a heartless side to him – which allowed him to treat the living and the dead in the way he did, and he was very confident he would get away with what he was doing.”
The judge added: “I don’t think I have ever known offences affecting so many people and so deeply.”
The five-day hearing, which began on Monday, heard Bush breached the trust of his customers “on an almost industrial scale” for 12 years.
His victims sobbed as prosecutors revealed graphic details about the “chaotic conditions” found inside the funeral home, including how police found the remains of a stillborn baby in a bag on the floor.
Bodies had been left to decompose, unidentified ashes were left in mouldy boxes, and excrement and bodily fluids were found on the floor, which was also strewn with rubbish and family photographs.
‘How is that right?’
More than 200 victims described the devastating and psychological impact of Bush’s crimes, many of them weeping as they read out their statements to the court.
Following sentencing, Joanne Moody, whose father Peter Moody was among the 35 bodies recovered from Legacy, said she felt “really, really let down” by the sentence.
“He’s going to be out in 10 years. How is that in any way, shape or form right?”
She told the BBC Bush took “the last bit of dignity” from their loved ones.
“He destroyed it,” she said. “Why? Why do it to us?”
Over the course of the week, the court heard Bush claimed to have debts of about £90,000 and had developed a cash flow problem.
However, on Friday the judge said: “There was no problem with Bush’s cash flow – the only problem was the direction it was flowing.”
Instead of investing in his business to pay for mortuary fridges and the care of the deceased, Bush “chose” to spend the money on holidays, home improvements and his motorcycle racing hobby.
Hilliard said Bush was motivated by “financial greed” and was “preoccupied with his own enrichment”.
“If [Bush] 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.”
