🔥 SCANDAL REVEALED: ‘MONSTER’ FUNERAL DIRECTOR ADMITS TO HIDING 30 BODIES AND GIVING ASHES TO THE WRONG FAMILIES!

The scene that had greeted officers at Legacy was likened to a ‘horror film’ and a diving unit experienced in dealing with decomposing remains had to be called in. Their most distressing discovery was the body of a stillborn child, a baby boy who was born prematurely in May 2022. There were also three ashes of unborn children discovered on the premises.

The officers then had the grim task of informing their horrified relatives. Many of their loved ones now want to see an end to the ‘wild west’ of funeral businesses.

Robert Bush admitted preventing the proper burials of 30 people(Image: PA)

Police found 35 bodies in Bush’s premises on Hessle Road in Hull in total but the crown prosecution gave the go ahead for 30 to be linked to charges. It is believed five may have not met a time threshold. They also found 67 sets of ashes. Today images of the scores of Bush’s victims were released after being compiled by police.

Heir hunters were employed to track down the families of people whose ashes were found. On Thursday Bush admitted 30 counts of “preventing a lawful and decent burial of a dead body.”

His final charge was for theft from 12 organisations going as far back as 2017 and including the Salvation Army, MacMillan Cancer Support, the Dogs Trust, Help for Heroes, the RNLI, the Sailors Children Society and Hull Fishing Heritage Charity.

Robert Bush posted this photo on Instagram of one of his company’s funerals

It took a while for the court clerk to read out all the charges and at count 18 relatives of Jessie Stockdale – who were sat in the public gallery – wept while Bush sighed. One of them was Jessie Stockdale’s “heartbroken”granddaughter Claire.

Jessie, 89, died in October 2023 – her family attending a funeral and receiving a box of ashes back. But five months later her body was found by police and the family had to hold a second funeral.

The Judge was told there are 240 victim statements to hear at sentencing. The prosecutor, said sentencing could take some time. Families sighed and shook their heads in disapproval as Bush was given bail again, until he is sentenced at the end of July. They described it as a “kick in the teeth”. Michaela Baldwin, 35, whose step dad Danny Middleton was one of the victims said it had been “hell” for two years, adding: “He did this for pure filthy greed. He won’t ever say sorry.”

Bush arriving at court today(Image: Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

Danny was one of 35 bodies found. Michaela added: “He’s a pure, cruel monster. He does not care. He keeps his head down when we’ve seen him at court. He won’t ever look at us dead in the eyes.

“I’ve always said if you want to make money you go into two industries, the sex industry and funerals. No one should be treated like he treated our loved ones. Danny was kept there with his hospital band on for about five months. I was shocked. It’s like being in a horror film.”

Families conned by Bush gathered at court to hear him plead guilty(Image: Andrew Stenning/Daily Mirror/Reach plc)

Families fear the ashes may have been replaced by cat litter and brick dust. “I know for sure one family had crawling insects in the ashes, Karen Dry told the Mirror. We want the Frankenstein funeral director to be locked up for a long time.”

Claire Stockdale, 47, said of him: “He hasn’t got any morals. It’s destroyed our family. We’ve had two funerals, two DNA tests and a two and a half year wait. He treated our nanna with no dignity. He gave us our nanna back in what look looks like an old Quality Street jar!”

Police raided his largest premises on Hessle Road and discovered 35 bodies inside (Image: Donna Clifford/Hull Live)

Last October Bush pleaded guilty to 35 counts of fraud by false representation and one charge of fraudulent trading. Four of those families affected were grieving parents, who’d lost a child.

The charges said Bush had “dishonestly made false representations…namely that he would properly care for the remains of the deceased in accordance with the normal expected practices of a competent funeral director.”

The charges dating from 2023 said he failed to ”arrange for the cremation of those remains to take place immediately or soon after the conclusion of the funeral service.

Masked up for work. Robert Bush worked alongside his daughter(Image: legacyfuneraldirectors)

The charges say he presented ashes to the customer saying they were the remains of the deceased person after cremation “knowing that the same was, or might be , untrue or misleading, and intending thereby to make a gain for himself or cause loss to another.”

Humberside Police raided his three business premises after a tip-off with a report of “concern for care of the deceased” in March 2024. A month after the investigation started, the force said it had received more than 2,000 calls on a dedicated phone line from families concerned about their loved ones’ ashes.

Footage was released today of the moment a shocked-looking Bush was arrested on an American Airlines flight on March 10, 2024 – just days after 34 bodies were recovered from his firm’s Hessle Road branch.

Bush stockpiled bodies at his premises

Since his arrest families have told of their horror, including a mum whose stillborn child was found on the premises. Jasmine Beverley told the BBC she gave birth to her son, Sunny Beverley-Conlin, prematurely in May 2022 and they’d held a funeral after receiving ashes.

But two years later they discovered the ashes were not his – and police later found their son’s body, still at the funeral home. Last October Bush admitted Mrs Beverley was one of his fraud victims. At the time Mrs Beverley said: “I am trying to forgive him but I am finding it hard, there must be some reason why he did this.”

Bush was arrested and hauled off a plane by police(Image: Humberside Police)

She described Sunny’s original funeral service in June 2022 as “beautiful”. It was held in an on-site chapel at Legacy’s headquarters. Following the ceremony, her family were presented with an urn of ashes. They were informed by police in March 2024 they were the remains of an unidentified stranger.

Jasmine and her husband Ben Conlin returned those ashes to police. She said she had polished the urn daily and “whoever was in there, was loved like they were my own baby.” Bush also admitted deceiving three other women into thinking ashes he gave them were those of their unborn babies.

Robert Bush, hiding from photographers behind a mask on his way into court.(Image: PA)

Another victim, Richard Shaw told The Mirror how he talks to two sets of ashes without knowing if either are the remains of his late wife Rita. Rita died in October 2023, just six weeks after receiving the devastating news she had lung cancer. In December, he received what he was told were her ashes – which he placed in an urn given price of place on the mantelpiece of his front room in the village of Woodmansey.

On Good Friday 2024, he was stunned to receive a phone call from police saying they had his wife’s ashes. They had been found in a red Hull crematorium box, but a Cottingley Crematorium in Leeds, where she had been cremated not in October, but January.

Richard Shaw was given the wrong ashes but now believes a second set belonged to his late wife Rita

He was allowed to collect the ashes in June and tipped the urn out in the back garden, spreading the ashes around a rose tree. He refilled the urn with the new ashes.

Richard, 71, a bus driver, said: “I talk to Rita every day. It is over two years since she died and it is still a wrench. I talk about anything to her. I put my foot in my mouth sometimes by saying ‘How Are You today?’. Then I say ‘I should not have said that to you because you are not here’.

“I just talk about general run of the mill things like it has been a horrible day. To the other set of ashes, I say: ‘I have looked after you for all this time and I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you are young or old’.

Rita Shaw was cremated in October 2023 but police found her ashes in the mortuary

There is no chance of finding out who the ashes belonged to. “There is not even a shortlist,” he added.

Because it was impossible to extract DNA from the ashes police had to rely on paper trails, which had led to the discovery of ashes police say are Rita’s. Richard said: “I don’t even know if Rita’s ashes are really Rita’s. Who knows? All I know is they are more likely to be Rita’s ashes than someone else’s.”

There had also been a mix-up over the box they were found in that should have led to someone at the crematorium being sacked. He added: “So I have two sets of ashes and still don’t know if I have got Rita’s back. It has been awful but I plod on.”

Karen Dry, 57, who arranged vigils for all the families since the raids, said she has spoken to “devastated” victims who had tattoos created out of the ashes.

“I have no idea how they get their head around that; if that was me I’d want that chopping out. They are devastated. We know that there’s at least a couple of people where they’ve received ashes and had tattoos.

“They’ve mixed the ash into the ink for the tattoo, only to then find out they have the wrong ashes. So they find out later on it’s not grandma they’ve got on their arm, it’s a complete stranger.

“So now they are walking around with ashes and they have no idea of who they belong to. It’s shocking, the level of cruelty is just awful. They will l never find out who t hat is on their arm as you can’t DNA ashes.”