Heartbroken parents have described unimaginable suffering after discovering they were given the wrong ashes – or no ashes at all – by a funeral director who admitted dozens of offences involving the dead. Robert Bush, 48, the former owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, is due to be sentenced later this week after pleading guilty to 67 criminal offences, including 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial.
His offending, which spanned 12 years, affected hundreds of grieving families and came to light after police were alerted to concerns over the care of the deceased at the funeral home in March 2024.
Bodies Left for Months at Funeral Home
When officers searched the premises, they discovered 31 bodies that should have been cremated months earlier. Among them was the body of a stillborn baby, which had remained at the funeral home for almost two years.
The shocking discoveries prompted one of the largest investigations of its kind in the UK.
‘My Baby Was Found in a Paper Bag on the Floor’
At Hull Crown Court, four mothers delivered emotional victim impact statements directly to Bush. Jasmine Beverley, whose son Sunny Beverley-Conlin was stillborn in May 2022, told the court she had trusted Bush to care for her baby after previously using his funeral services for her father.
She and her partner believed Sunny had been cremated before collecting what they were told were his ashes in March 2023. Instead, police later found Sunny’s body in a brown paper bag on the floor of the funeral home.
Fighting back tears, Ms Beverley told Bush:
“I trusted you with the most precious person in my life.”
She continued:
“The reality I now live with is that my baby boy Sunny has spent more time in your possession than he ever did with his own family.
“I have to live with the fact that my son was kept for so long without my knowledge, and that when he was eventually found he was in a brown paper bag on the floor.
“As a mother, that is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
‘A Living Nightmare’
Katie Woolston, who suffered a miscarriage in 2023, told the court Bush promised her baby’s ashes would be placed in a special urn rather than “those awful cardboard boxes”.
However, records later showed he had not even collected the ashes from the crematorium until after she had already been handed a box supposedly containing them.
She said:
“Robert Bush made one of the most heartbreaking times of my life even more of a living nightmare.”
She added:
“I often wonder where my baby’s remains are… or if they were simply disposed of like a piece of litter.”
Jewellery Made Using the Wrong Ashes
The court also heard from Stacey Foster and her partner Peter Cooke, whose son Tommy died during pregnancy in 2023. Believing they had received Tommy’s ashes, the couple commissioned memorial jewellery, including a ring and a locket.
Investigators later discovered the ashes did not belong to Tommy. His real ashes were eventually recovered from Legacy Funeral Directors and returned to the family.
Ms Foster told the court:
“We were robbed of having our baby back with us and Tommy was robbed of his identity.”
‘I Have Been Left With Nothing’
Another mother, Lucy Ness, said she was handed an urn she believed contained her baby’s ashes after suffering a miscarriage in 2021.
Police later found only empty packaging bearing her baby’s details during their search of the funeral home.
Investigators established Bush had not collected the ashes from the crematorium until two days after giving her the urn. The baby’s ashes have never been found.
She told the court:
“He has done the lowest of the low.
“I have now been left with nothing but an empty bag which once contained the ashes of my baby.
“I will never know what he has done to them.”
Sentencing Later This Week
Bush pleaded guilty to 67 offences, including 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial, after an investigation uncovered widespread failings in the handling of the deceased. The court heard his actions affected hundreds of victims over more than a decade.
He is due to be sentenced later this week at Hull Crown Court.
