Disgraced funeral boss who gave families the wrong ashes and kept bodies on the floor inside 'horror scene' jailed for 20 years

Warning: This story contains distressing content

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The 48-year-old appeared in the dock at Hull Crown Court on Friday following a five-day sentencing hearing into his sick crimes.

He previously admitted 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims at his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, and was sentenced to 20 years on Friday.

Bush was motivated by "financial greed" and breached the trust of grieving families "on an almost industrial scale" by keeping bodies for months after they should have been cremated.

Read more: 'I'll never recover': Mother's agony after discovering the 'ashes' she treasured were actually animal remains - leaving her with 'nothing' of the baby she lost

Read more: How many more families must suffer before ministers clean up Britain's funeral care sector?

He also gave out the wrong ashes, took money for funeral plans without making any of the arrangements, and stole charity donations collected at services.

Bush splurged more than £42,000 on holidays while he was defrauding scores of customers.

Judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, described the offending as being on an "industrial scale" and said Bush was motivated by "financial greed".

He said: "I do not think I have ever known offences affect so many people, and so many people so deeply.

"No sentence I pass can put right the harm that the defendant has done."

The judge added that Bush was "so pre-occupied with his own enrichment that he behaved in a shocking and disgraceful way towards the deceased entrusted to his care".

He added: "If [Bush] could re-use a coffin someone had already paid for, he would do so. If it was cheaper to keep someone in non-refrigerated conditions, he would do that too."

Bush's family-owned business became the centre of the criminal investigation after police were contacted by someone with access to the site in March 2024.

When officers searched the premises, they found 31 bodies that should have been cremated months earlier, including a stillborn baby that had been there for almost two years.

They also found more than 100 sets of ashes, some with name labels and letters attached to the box.

Andy Burnham has backed an urgent crackdown into rogue funeral operators which will offer better protection for bereaved families.

The Department for Health and Social Care announced on Friday that it will work alongside other government departments to crack down on rogue operators in the funeral sector.

A spokesperson said it will include developing a "range of detailed proposals to drive up standards, including regulation of the funeral sector".

Earlier in the week, the mother of one stillborn baby described her distress after Bush kept his remains in an envelope on the cold room floor for almost two years.

Jasmine Beverley believed her son Sunny, who was stillborn at 18 weeks, had been given a funeral and cremated but instead, his remains lay on the floor of the premises, kept in what looked to a police officer to resemble an evidence bag.

The judge said police found his remains in a bag on the floor and how they initially thought it was a little bird.

Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC told the court: "In this bag was a white cotton pad.“It looked like a dressing-type pad used by hospitals.

"[The officer] opened the pad and inside was a tiny item which he initially thought was a baby bird. Although initially unsure, he suspected it was a human foetus."

The body of 94-year-old Norman Bridger was left in a cardboard coffin on Legacy premises for ten months after his death, which his daughter described as "beyond belief".

Karen King, Mr Bridger's daughter, told the court: "My lovely dad lay in a cardboard coffin for almost 11 months. It is beyond belief."

Police found that many families of the deceased found at Legacy had already been given ashes by Bush, revealing a widespread practice of him giving grieving relatives the wrong ashes.

Investigators also learned that Bush had committed fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans, where he would take payment for the plans but not pass any of the money on to the financial institutions that would hold it for when the funeral was required.

He also stole from charities by failing to pass on donations collected at funerals.

The court previously heard Bush spent more than £42,000 on holidays while he was defrauding his victims including £9,000 on camping and almost £7,000 on motorcycle racing.

As well as the £42k, financial records submitted to the court showed that between 2017 and 2024, when he was arrested, Bush spent £21,000 on motorcycle racing and £17,400 on home improvements.

The court heard that the holidays included three trips to Center Parcs, a trip to Italy, and £3,000 on the holiday he was taking with his daughter in Arizona when the horrors at the funeral home were discovered.

The judge added: "If the police had not intervened, the practice would have continued.

"There was obviously a cost to carrying out a cremation, but he would only pay that when it suited him to do so, or when personal expenditure permitted.

"He was in Arizona on holiday when these offences were discovered. He must have chosen not to spend the cost of his holiday on cremating some of those who were at Legacy."

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.

Bush's lawyers told the judge that their client had expressed his apologies.

Detective Superintendent Alan Curtis said afterwards: Mr Curtis said: "I know one of my officers noted that he is a lot more shrewd than he was portraying, certainly in interviews.

"I think he liked to come across as quite a scatty, poor, difficult, bad businessman when actually I think the reality is that he knew exactly what was going on and he’s committed all these offences and only someone that’s quite intelligent and smart and shrewd and deceitful would be able to commit those.

"He said the only person who knew his motive was Robert Bush himself."

He added: "Yes, Robert Bush was in debt.

"Yes, there’s a financial aspect of this as well, but as a normal person, morally and ethically, I can’t see how anyone could have committed any of these offences and have any justification or reason behind that at all."

Attempts to recover the profits made by Bush will be made.