A fraudulent funeral director has admitted giving families the wrong ashes, lying to them, stealing from them and also stealing from charities while he was “trusted by people at a time they needed him most”.

Robert Bush pleaded guilty to preventing a lawful burial after 30 bodies and a quantity of ashes were found at a funeral home in Hull in 2024, in a case that shocked an entire city.

Bush, 48, had previously admitted to dozens of counts of fraud at a hearing in October, after police raided the premises of Legacy funeral home on Hessle Road over concern for care of the dead.

He was charged with 67 offences in total and pleaded guilty to the remaining charges at Hull crown court on Thursday.

He also admitted to stealing from charities including the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, the Dogs Trust, the RNLI and WISHH, a local hospital charity.

Four of the charges related to “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.

He was granted bail on the same conditions as he was previously under.
Accepting the defence’s application for a pre-sentence report into the circumstances of the crimes, Mr Justice Hilliard said “everybody accepts a custodial sentence is inevitable in this case”.

As Bush left the courtroom, families followed him, shouting: “You must feel like the luckiest man alive. No apologies to the families. No ‘sorries’, no sadness.”

Outside the courtroom, one of the victims, Michaela Baldwin, whose stepfather’s body was found in the funeral home after they had been given what they believed to be his ashes, said the two-year wait for justice had been “horrible”. She said she was thinking of her stepfather, Danny Middleton, when the charge was read out and when Bush said “guilty” in response.

“[Her stepfather] is finally getting the justice he deserves for being treated the way he was,” she said. “For us, to finally hear ‘guilty’ is what we were wanting but for him to be granted bail and walk out of here was a kick in the teeth.”

She said the families had been in agony while the defendant “stretched it out” by not pleading guilty. “We had to sit there with our families at Christmas with this hanging over, while he’s [initially pleaded guilty] so he can spend Christmas with his family.”

Baldwin said her family had now received the correct ashes, insuring they had the certification, and some family members planned to have jewellery made or have them tattooed. “Luckily they hadn’t done anything with the other ashes,” she said.

Bush has so far made no apology to the families involved – though it would not help, Baldwin said. “He won’t say sorry and it wouldn’t mean nowt anyway,” she said. “He did it because of pure greed, just wanting the money. It’s sickening.”

She said the families of the 29 people whose bodies were found there, plus others who did not know if they had received the right ashes, were “up and down”. “We all want him put away and we all want it done with,” she said, adding that she had not been sleeping in the run-up to the hearing.

Karen Dry, whose parents, Betty and Allan Griffin, both had funerals with Bush, called for the government to “pay attention to this case”.

Underlining calls for tighter regulation of the funeral industry, she said it was likely there were other cases like Bush going undetected.

“It’s got to stop. If we’ve got a Frankenstein funeral director on Hessle Road there’s probably one in every city,” she said.

A sentencing hearing was scheduled for 27 July and is expected to last at least two days. The court was told there would be between 200 and 240 victim impact statements in the case, such was the scale of the crimes.

The senior investigating officer, Det Supt Alan Curtis from Humberside police, said Bush was “trusted by people at a time they needed him most” and that “he exploited them”.

Curtis said: “The utter devastation and emotional harm Robert Bush has caused to hundreds of victims and families cannot be underestimated. They trusted he would look after those who meant the most to them, and that he would treat their loved ones with dignity, respect and in accordance with their wishes. This did not happen.

The distress and devastation that this has caused for those families is simply unimaginable.”

Laura Tams, the deputy chief crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “These charges represent some of the most serious breaches of trust possible in the funeral industry. They include preventing the lawful and decent burial of bodies, defrauding families who paid for services never provided, returning wrong ashes to grieving relatives, fraudulent trading of funeral plans, and the theft of charitable donations made in memory of the deceased.

“The impact on the families and wider community has been profound. At their most vulnerable time, when seeking dignity and closure for their loved ones, these families were subjected to appalling violations of trust.

“I want to take this opportunity to share my deepest condolences to all those who have been affected. Learning that their relatives’ remains had not received proper care, and that some received the wrong ashes, has caused immeasurable additional grief and trauma.”

Ashes recovered from the premises cannot be identified and there are many families who will never know whether the remains they received belonged to their loved ones.