Britain’s worst ever funeral home scandal was finally exposed while its fraudulent undertaker was holidaying in America, an ex-worker has revealed.
Robert Bush, 48, is facing prison after he yesterday admitted preventing the burials of 30 people at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.
In a sickening betrayal, he stockpiled bodies while dishonestly pocketing thousands of pounds in cremation fees paid by their unwitting relatives as part of funeral plans.
In total, Bush cruelly duped at least 200 families who had paid him in advance for the funerals, only for him to use the money for himself. He also had debts amounting to almost £55,000, including to local councils for unpaid cremation and burial fees.
His twisted crimes were exposed after police found human remains at his funeral parlour, including those of four unborn babies in March 2024.
Patrick Moore, who worked for Bush at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, has revealed how the undertaker was ‘living beyond his means’, investing in racing bikes and spending money on expensive track days.
He also told how the undertaker splashed out on luxury holidays, including a trip to Los Angeles in March 2024 to watch motorcycle racing.
It was during this holiday that his crimes were exposed and he was detained by officers in his plane seat when he returned from the US.
‘Rob was in America and I was looking after things for about four days,’ Mr Moore told the BBC.
Robert Bush stockpiled bodies at his funeral parlour and pocketed thousands of pounds in cremation fees
Bush was detained by officers in his plane seat when he returned from the US in March 2024
Humberside Police launched an investigation into Legacy Independent Funeral Directors across three premises in Hull and East Yorkshire
‘He said if anybody comes just don’t answer the door. Simple as that, that was what I got.
‘Don’t answer the door.’
Bush’s funeral home scandal may never have been exposed but for what happened while he was in America.
Moore revealed how he borrowed a stretcher from another funeral service to collect a body from a local nursing home.
But when two men came to retrieve the stretcher, they saw what was really going on inside Legacy’s premises.
‘While I was talking to one of them, the other one went in the fridge, Mr Moore recalls.
‘They had seen it shouldn’t be like this.’
It was at this moment that one of the men rang the police – and Mr Moore later went down to the station.
Mr Moore had previously challenged Bush about how things were being run at Legacy, admitting that he ‘could see there was something wrong’. But he said his boss ‘always had an answer for everything’.
The father-of-two said Bush would be ‘jumpy’ every time the phone rang as the debt-ridden undertaker was getting threats to be cut off from his electricity.
He explained how Bush would sell whatever he could, including taking his laptop to a pawnbroker. His now-deleted Facebook posts show how he was selling a hearse, cars and a mortuary fridge that ‘ran cool not cold’.
Moore’s testimony was integral to Humberside Police’s investigation.
Police found 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes when they raided Legacy Independent Funeral Directors’ in March 2024.
Bush also pleaded guilty to theft from 12 charities, including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support.
One mother, whose stillborn child’s body was discovered years after his funeral, said Bush ‘will pay for what he’s done’.
Jasmine Beverley’s son, Sunny, was stillborn in May 2022 and his funeral was arranged by Bush at Legacy’s site.
Bush also admitted theft from 12 charities, including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support
Bush arrives at Hull Crown Court this morning, where he was set to enter pleas to a raft of offences in relation to his funeral parlour
Ms Beverley said she and her husband were initially concerned that they had received his ashes in the same box they had brought Sunny in.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Ms Beverley said: ‘It was the one that we’d had Sunny in originally and I questioned that and I thought surely he would have been put into the cremator in the box and they won’t have taken him out, so why is it the same box?
‘And my husband said maybe he’s just got a similar one but I noticed a nick in the actual wood and I knew it was the same box.’
Two years later, Ms Beverley, who was seven months pregnant, was told by police that they believed they had found Sunny at Legacy’s site.
Sunny’s mother said: ‘It was very distressing, I was losing sleep and just feeling so powerless.
‘The thoughts that were going on in my head, that I’m going to lose this baby, and people saying, ‘oh, don’t be silly, don’t feel like that, you’ll be fine, you’re so far now’.
‘But the thought of what had happened to Sunny, happening to this pregnancy, was playing heavily on my mind, and it ruined the last two months of my pregnancy.’
Discussing Bush, Ms Beverley said: ‘I think as a human being, we are all capable of doing evil things.
‘Our morality stops us from doing that. And what’s blurred his thought process is something that he’s got to live with.
‘He will pay for what he’s done.’
Bush could not face the most serious charges in relation to Sunny’s case as Ms Beverley’s son died less than 24 weeks into her pregnancy.
The mother is now campaigning for a change in the law and said: ‘I was able to make his life mean something just by talking about him, by hopefully helping other mothers.’
Bush was bailed until his sentencing hearing on July 27, but was warned by the judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, that a prison sentence was ‘inevitable’.
Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said there would be about 240 victim impact statements provided before the sentencing hearing from people who had been affected by the case.
At a hearing in October, Bush admitted to 30 counts of fraud by false representation over the same 30 people.
He also pleaded guilty to four ‘foetus allegations’ of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were ‘the remains of their unborn’.
He admitted 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.
Before the hearing, affected families described Bush as ‘a monster’ who ‘put us all through hell for his own selfishness’.
Karen Dry, who trusted Bush with her parents’ funerals in 2016 and 2018, has organised monthly vigils for victims since the investigation started in 2024.
She told the Press Association she would never be sure whether the ashes she was given by Bush were actually her parents, leaving the ‘heartbreaking’ possibility that they might not be together in death as they wanted.
Michaela Baldwin, whose stepfather, Danny Middleton, was one of the bodies found at the site, months after he was supposed to have been cremated, said Bush had ‘put us all through hell for his own selfishness’.
Humberside Police launched an investigation into his business after a report of ‘concern for care of the deceased’ in March 2024.
The force said that the 35 bodies found at the funeral home were taken to the mortuary to be identified, where it was found that only four should have been there and the others had been kept ‘much longer than necessary’.
Forensic teams also recovered large quantities of human ashes from the Hessle Road site, some with name labels and letters attached to the box.
Police said it soon became apparent that some of the families of those people had already received ashes.
It was not possible to identify any of the ashes because the high temperatures required for a cremation meant the DNA had broken down too much for a profile to be recovered.
The force said other people were still waiting to receive ashes after being told by Bush that the cremation had taken place, but these ashes were never found.
