Funeral director Robert Bush breached families’ trust ‘on an industrial scale’

Funeral director Robert Bush breached the trust of grieving families “on an almost industrial scale” while spending their money on himself, a court has heard.

The “horror scene” of his premises at Hull-based Legacy Independent Funeral Directors was discovered in March 2024 when he was on holiday.

When police were tipped off that something criminal may be going on at the business, they found bodies in varying states of decomposition, including one of a stillborn baby.

Gasps were heard in court from family members as details of the scene were described in court.

At the start of a five-day sentencing hearing at Hull Crown Court, prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said Bush “operated within the heart of the community for around 14 years, entrusted by hundreds of bereaved families, in their time of need, to treat their loved ones with dignity”.

He added: “And yet over almost 12 of those years, Mr Bush breached that trust on an almost industrial scale in a myriad of ways – by selling funeral plans when not authorised to do so; by failing to bury or cremate loved ones; by falsely claiming he had done so when presenting families with ashes which were not those of their loved ones.

“He raised expectations, made false promises and stole cash donations intended for local and national charities.

“All of Mr Bush’s offences impacted young and old alike across the community of Hull and beyond.”

The court heard that the scale of his offending was discovered by chance, when he was in Arizona and contacted Gary Pickering and Steve Emmerson – the directors of Evergreen Funeral Directors – asking them to assist him with a body recovery whilst he was away.

Patrick Moore – a casual worker for Legacy – helped the two men collect the body from the care home, but said Bush had told him “not to bring anyone back to Legacy or help put a body into the fridge area”.

The court heard Moore then told the men: “You two don’t know the half of it, bodies have been there for years.”

After becoming suspicious that operations at Legacy were not as they should be, Emmerson telephoned Mr Moore and asked how many bodies were there.

Moore counted up to 29 bodies, describing it as being something from a “horror scene”.

The court heard Emmerson and Pickering persuaded Moore to let them into Legacy’s site on Hessle Road, despite him initially being afraid of “repercussions”.

The two men were “shocked” at what they saw at Legacy and flagged down a passing police car to report it.

Paxton said that when police attended, they found bodies stored on the racks of a cold storage area, with the vast majority “uncovered and in varying states of decomposition”.

Paxton said the funeral home was “dirty and unkept” and there were items including flowers, rings, teddies, and cards on the floor, which “loved ones would have wanted to stay with their deceased family members”.

During the search, a police officer found a brown paper bag containing a “tiny item” which he initially thought was a baby bird, but had two hospital wristbands wrapped around the waist with the words, ‘Baby of Jasmine Beverley, born on 13/05/22 at 05:04’.”

The prosecutor said: “He was shocked. The investigation established that these were the identification wristbands placed around the waist of babies by the hospital when they were too small for them to be placed around the wrist.

“Jasmine Beverley, gave birth to baby Sunny on 13 May 2022, aged 18 weeks.”

Bush was arrested at Heathrow Airport when he returned from his holiday on March 10 2024, and after being cautioned, said: “Saskia (his daughter) is unaware of that, that I have deceived everyone from that.”

He later said: “I’ve f***** it all up, everything, my whole world.”

In his first police interview, Bush said he had developed a cash-flow problem because “people did not always pay,” and had debts of about £90,000.

He said he struggled with maintaining the payments for the leases, and believed there were about 30 bodies at the Hessle Road site, with five to six of them “recent” and waiting to be cremated.

Paxton said: “In respect of the older bodies that had not been cremated due to cash flow issues, his plan had been to generate more business and clear the backlog within two to three months.”

He believed the oldest body that was retained was from April 2023. He said these were generally of older people above the age of 60.

In his second interview, he answered “no comment” to most of the questions about the bodies found at Legacy.

The court heard that between March 2017 and April 2024, more that £3 million was paid into his business and personal accounts but the turnover reported to HMRC in these years does not reflect this.

During this time, Bush’s “profligate personal spending” and transfers to his wife accounted for over £879,000, Paxton said.

He told the court: “The financial situation within the business was not dire, but likely mismanaged, and the expenditure reflected Mr Bush’s priorities and not those whom he was meant to be serving.

“For all of Mr Bush’s claims about his finances, it should be borne in mind that the cost of a single cremation was around £500, and yet Mr Bush chose not to deal with those bodies entrusted to him but to operate as he chose and spend the money on himself and others.”