A funeral director who kept 35 decomposing bodies at a site in Hull and gave families the wrong ashes had treated a dead pensioner “like a piece of meat”, a court has heard.
Robert Bush, 48, was found with half a tonne of ashes, with some families forced to wait seven weeks for DNA tests to identify their loved ones.
One woman described Bush as “pure evil” after he gave her the wrong ashes of her brother Paul Hemingway, which her children then had made into jewellery.
Terry White’s daughter Angela Scottow also said that she was handed the wrong ashes, and that her family had lit candles around them on his birthday to celebrate his life.
“Dad was such a lovely man and Rob Bush treated him like a piece of meat,” she said. “I feel only anger, hatred and disgust for the man that I trusted to treat my dad with dignity and respect.”
She added: “He has absolutely broken me. How will I trust anyone again?”
The court heard the body of 88-year-old Peter Brown was found at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors more than a month after his death with his hearing aids still in place, while 80-year-old Jim Porter’s body was found with hospital identification bands still on his wrists.
The grandson of Susan Stone, 77, whose body was also found at Legacy, said that his grandfather was “destroyed” by the discovery.
Hull Crown Court heard over 12 years, Bush breached the trust placed in him by 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 of the arrangements and stealing charity donations collected at services.
One woman said she feels she has let her mother down after her ashes “can’t be located anywhere”.
In a victim personal statement, Claire Edwards said: “I am so angry that I placed trust in Bush from the start, and that he has let us down as a family, and I feel that I personally have let my mum down.
“I feel guilty about what happened with my mum’s funeral arrangements and that I am unable to place my mum’s ashes with my late dad’s ashes – which were hers/our wishes.”
His crimes were discovered by chance, when he was on holiday in Arizona and contacted Gary Pickering and Steve Emmerson, directors of Evergreen Funeral Directors, asking them to assist with a body recovery while 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”.
After becoming suspicious that operations at Legacy were not as they should be, the two men persuaded Mr Moore to let them into Legacy’s site on Hessle Road, which was described as a “horror scene”.
They flagged down a passing police car after discovering bodies “uncovered and in varying states of decomposition”, with the funeral home described as “dirty and unkempt” and a human foetus discovered in a brown bag.
Robert Bush committed fraud concerning the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, Hull Crown Court has heard.
The total value of this fraud is around £86,868 with 46 victims identified where ashes have been wrongly returned to families, and an additional 11 families where no ashes have ever been returned, prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said.
He added that the “lack of book keeping” by Bush was “quite profound”, making it “very difficult to follow” the number of funerals overseen by the him during this time.
Bush has admitted 67 offences, including preventing a lawful and decent burial, fraudulent trading, fraud by false representation and theft from well-known charities.
This includes four “foetus allegations” of fraud where he presented ashes to women, falsely saying they were “the remains of their unborn”.
