Disgraced funeral director Robert Bush to be sentenced in ‘unprecedented’ case

Disgraced funeral director Robert Bush is to learn his fate after a five-day sentencing hearing in which more than 200 victims described the devastating impact of his crimes.The court heard that Bush, 48, 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 will be sentenced on Friday for 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims at his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.Composite of the victims (Humberside Police/PA)PA MediaProsecutors say Bush should face a prison sentence of between 20 and 25 years, but described his case as “unprecedented”.Hull Crown Court heard there were no sentencing guidelines and no maximum penalty for the offence of preventing a lawful burial, which accounts for 30 of the charges, and previous cases did not reflect what Bush was doing.Read MoreOver 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.The 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.Police outside a branch of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull in 2024 (Danny Lawson/PA)PA ArchiveThe 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”.The 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.Robert Bush at Hull Crown Court (Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA)PA WireThe 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.An 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.He will be sentenced by Mr Justice Hilliard from midday on Friday.