Hull funeral director Robert Bush admits preventing 30 burials - as families say he should 'rot in jail'

A funeral director - dubbed "a monster" by his victims - has pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful burial.

Dozens of bodies and ashes from different people were recovered from a funeral home in Hull in March 2024.

Some of the remains had been stored in varying states of decay for nearly a year after relatives thought they had been buried or cremated.

Robert Bush initially denied all the charges, but changed his pleas at Hull Crown Court on Thursday to admit preventing the lawful and decent burials of 30 bodies.

The 48-year-old was charged after police found human remains at his premises, including those of four unborn babies.

Standing in the dock, the funeral director pleaded guilty to each of the allegations one by one. He was bailed until his sentencing hearing on 27 July.

Bush also previously denied one charge of theft from 12 charities - including the Salvation Army, RNLI, Dogs Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support - and has now pleaded guilty to this offence, too.

At a hearing in October 2025, Bush admitted 35 counts of false representation and one count of fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans. Thirty-four of the false representation charges relate to human remains.

The offences span more than 10 years and relate to more than 300 victims.

Humberside Police began its inquiry into Legacy Independent Funeral Directors after a report of "concern for care of the deceased" in March 2024.

Bush was initially charged in April 2025.

In a statement after Bush's change of pleas, Detective Superintendent Alan 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."

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Hull City Council described what Bush did as "unprecedented".

The East Riding of Yorkshire Council said the past two years had been "distressing and intense" for affected families, as well as council workers dealing with the aftermath.

Karen Dry, whose parents' funerals were organised by Bush, spoke for some of the other families outside court, noting there are still "many unanswered questions" following the guilty pleas.

"When this ordeal started, we were blindsided. We had no idea of the level of repulsive and sickening findings inside that funeral directors' building," Mrs Dry told reporters.

"There is an enduring sense of deep betrayal, emotional stress and damage caused by this individual, to many families right across the city."

Deputy chief crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Laura Tams said treating families with a lack of decency and dignity "caused them additional trauma".

She said: "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.

"At the heart of this case is the absolute lack of dignity shown by Robert Bush to the loved ones in his care and to their families."

Bush had previously admitted other charges; including one count of fraud in relation to human ashes - involving more than 50 victims - and one count of fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans - covering more than 200 victims.

Families had paid him in advance for the funerals, only for him to use the money for his own purposes.

Four of the fraud counts relate to mothers who had lost babies in pregnancy and asked Bush to arrange the cremation of their stillborn child.

His crimes at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors were uncovered after police received reports the deceased were not being properly looked after at one of the three homes he operated.

Many families will never know for sure if they received the right ashes, while others thought their loved one had been cremated when their body was still at the funeral parlour.

Humberside Police say it was impossible to identify any of the ashes using DNA testing.

The body of Michaela Baldwin's stepdad, Danny Middleton, was found at Legacy several months after his funeral.

She told Sky News the family had joked in the pub after the service that the coffin looked too small as he was a "big guy".

"We don't reckon he was in that coffin," says Ms Baldwin. "It was too small for him to fit in it."

The family believed Legacy cremated Danny after the funeral, with his son going to pick up what they believed were Mr Middleton's ashes.

"My nieces were planning on using the ashes to make into bits of jewellery, things like that."

It wasn't until about four months later that police informed the family that Mr Middleton's body was still at the funeral home, wearing his hospital band with his name and details on.

"The first thing is, whose [ashes] have we got?" says Ms Baldwin.

"Why have they still got his body? Have they done anything to his body? What was he [Bush] gonna do? And the questions keep going and going."

Ms Baldwin believes Bush was driven by "pure greed" and should "rot in jail".

"He's a monster, he's got no empathy, no compassion, no nothing."

The family initially felt they had let Danny down and say discovering how his body had been treated was like "losing him all over again".

"It's horrible to think of him just laying there, forgotten, because that's not the sort of guy he was. We all loved him," says Ms Baldwin.

Mr Middleton's body was later cremated - with his son staying with him to make sure it was done properly.

The family are now urging more oversight of funeral services: "You have to have more regulations to open a sandwich shop than you do a funeral parlour," says Ms Baldwin.

'How could he destroy so many lives?'

Jo Moody's father, Peter, died in November 2023.

The family also used Robert Bush's services, holding a small ceremony at Legacy's on-site chapel.

They thought Bush had taken Peter's body to an off-site location shortly afterwards for cremation, paying for that service with the money the family had, in turn, paid him.

"I thought I'd sent my dad to where he needed to be," Ms Moody tells Sky News.

She says she was "bewildered" when police came to her door months later to say her father's remains had been found.

Describing Bush as "evil", Ms Moody says his actions robbed her of "happy" memories of her dad: "Yes, I have some, but they always come back to [Bush's] face and that Legacy building."

The family held a second funeral but were still traumatised by what happened at his first.

"I stood there by the coffin," Ms Moody says, "and I looked the vicar in the eye and asked her: 'Is that my Dad in there?'"

She couldn't believe she was having to ask - but says the vicar replied: "I promise you, that's him in there."

"How could [Bush] be so cold, to destroy so many lives as he's destroyed? I just want to know why," she adds.

'You felt you could totally trust him'

Karen Dry was also affected by the Legacy scandal.

Her parents weren't included in the police case but she's still uncertain if she has the right ashes for her mum and dad.

She told Sky News that Bush came across as "professional but charming" and that he worked from a clean and tidy office.

Mrs Dry says both funerals for her parents, Allan and Betty Griffin, also appeared well organised to the extent she'd even put a provision in her will for Legacy to do her own funeral.

"He [Bush] was there to console... He was the one that was guiding you, making sure everything you wanted for your parents' funeral was taken care of. You felt you could totally trust him," she says.

When the horrific situation appeared in the media, Mrs Dry phoned victim support and was asked if her parents had any distinguishing features.

"That's the point at which you know that what they've found in there is really horrific and really quite shocking," she says.

"To be asking for distinguishing features is not something you're going to expect to be asking six and eight years after they've died."

Despite her parents not being among the bodies, the nightmare was not over.

Police revealed they had also found "a quantity of ashes" from dozens of different people at the business.

"They can't do any DNA on the ashes because obviously it's cremated, there's no DNA to be had," says Mrs Dry. "So we'll forever wonder if we have the right ones or not."

Bush's motive remains unclear, but she says if it was greed then "no sentence will be long enough".

"It makes me sick to my stomach," she adds.

Mrs Dry is calling for major reform of the funeral industry, including the following: measures to ensure a funeral director isn't holding a body for an abnormal amount of time; procedures for when a funeral home leaves a premises and moves elsewhere; a ban on firms moving bodies around the UK to a cheaper crematorium.

She warns: "If regulation doesn't happen - and doesn't happen soon - there will be another Legacy."

(c) Sky News 2026: Hull funeral director Robert Bush admits preventing 30 burials - as families say he shoul