Man admits preventing lawful burial in relation to 30 bodies found at Hull funeral home | Hull
A funeral director has admitted that a legal funeral was blocked after 30 bodies and a quantity of ashes were found at a Hull funeral home in 2024.
Robert Bush, 48, admitted dozens of fraudulent claims at a hearing in October after police raided the Legacy funeral home premises on Hessle Road over concerns about the care of the dead.
He was charged with 67 offenses in total and pleaded guilty to the remaining charges in a Hull court on Thursday.
He also admitted stealing from charities including the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, Dogs Trust, RNLI and WISHH, a local hospital charity.
He was released on bail with the same conditions as before.
Accepting the defense’s application for a pre-sentence report on the circumstances of the crimes, Mr Justice Hilliard said “everyone accepts that a prison sentence is inevitable in this case”.
Outside the courtroom, Michaela Baldwin, one of the victims who was at the funeral home after her stepfather’s ashes were given to her, said the two-year wait for justice was “terrible.” He said he thought of his stepfather, Danny Middleton, when the charge was read and Bush said “guilty” in response.
“[Her stepfather] “For us, in the end, ‘guilty’ was what we wanted to hear, but for him to get bail and walk out of here was a kick in the teeth.”
The defendant “prolonged” the crime by not admitting it, and said that the families suffered. “At Christmas we had to sit there with our families because of this trip, and he [initially pleaded guilty] “So he can spend Christmas with his family.”
Baldwin said her family has now received the correct ashes, made sure they have certification, and some family members plan to get jewelry or tattoos. “Luckily they didn’t do anything with the other ashes,” he said.
Baldwin said Bush has so far made no apology to the families involved, but that wouldn’t help. “He won’t apologize and it wouldn’t mean anything anyway,” he said. “He did this out of pure greed, he just wanted the money. It’s sickening.”
He said there were “more or less” families of the 29 people whose bodies were there, as well as others who didn’t know if they had received the correct ashes. “We all want him to go to jail and we all want this to be over,” he said, adding that he had not slept before the hearing.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 27 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, depending on the extent of the offences.
