How ‘Frankenstein’ undertaker’s trip to the US helped expose Britain’s worst ever funeral home scandal – as he faces prison for letting 30 bodies rot and pocketing cremation fees

Britain’s worst ever funeral home scandal was finally exposed while the crooked undertaker was on holiday in America, a former worker has revealed.

Robert Bush, 48, faces a prison sentence after admitting preventing the burial of 30 people at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull yesterday.

In a sickening betrayal, he stockpiled bodies while dishonestly pocketing thousands of pounds in cremation fees paid by unsuspecting relatives as part of his funeral plans.

In all, Bush brutally tricked at least 200 families who had paid him advance payments for funeral expenses into using the money for himself. He also owed almost £55,000, including money owed to local councils for unpaid funeral and burial fees.

His twisted crimes came to light after police found human remains, including four unborn babies, in a funeral parlor in March 2024.

Patrick Moore, who worked for Bush at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, revealed how the undertaker was ‘living beyond his means’, investing in racing bikes and splurging on expensive track days.

He also described how the undertaker splashed out on luxury holidays, including a trip to Los Angeles in March 2024 to watch motorcycle races.

During this holiday his crimes were exposed and when he returned from the USA he was detained by officers in his plane seat.

“Rob was in America and I was looking after things for about four days,” Mr Moore told the BBC.

When Bush returned from the United States in March 2024, he was detained by officers in his airplane seat.

Humberside Police launched an investigation into Legacy Independent Funeral Directors at three premises in Hull and East Yorkshire

‘If anyone comes, don’t answer the door,’ he said. Simple as that, this is what I got.

‘Do not answer the door.’

Bush’s funeral home scandal may never have come to light if it weren’t for what happened while he was in America.

Moore explained how he borrowed a stretcher from another funeral service to retrieve the body from a local nursing home.

However, when the two men came to collect the stretcher, they saw what was really happening in Legacy’s building.

‘I was talking to one of them and the other one went to the fridge,’ Mr Moore recalls.

‘They saw that it shouldn’t be like this.’

At this point one of the men called the police and Mr Moore then went to the police station.

Mr Moore has previously challenged Mr Bush over how things were done at Legacy and admitted he could ‘see something was wrong’. But he said his boss ‘always had an answer for everything.’

The father of two said Bush became ‘nervous’ every time the phone rang because the debt-ridden undertaker had received threats to cut off his electricity.

He explained how Bush would sell whatever he could, including taking his laptop to a loan shark. Now-deleted Facebook posts show how he sold a hearse, cars and a mortuary refrigerator that ‘runs cool, not cold’.

Moore’s statement was an integral part of Humberside Police’s investigation.

When police raided Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in March 2024, they found 35 bodies and more than 100 ashes.

Bush also pleaded guilty to theft from 12 charities, including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support.

A mother whose stillborn child’s body was found years after his funeral said that Bush “will pay for what he did.”

Jasmine Beverley’s son Sunny was stillborn in May 2022 and his funeral was held by Bush at Legacy’s location.

Bush also admitted stealing from 12 charities, including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support

Bush arrived at Hull Crown Court this morning where he was due to enter his plea to a series of charges against him in connection with the funeral parlour.

Mrs Beverley said she and her husband were initially concerned that Sunny would receive his ashes in the box they brought him.

In an interview on BBC Newsnight, Ms Beverley said: ‘This was the box we originally put Sunny in and I questioned that and thought surely she would be put in the crematorium in the box and not take her out. So why the same box?

‘And my husband said maybe he had a similar box, but I noticed a dent in the wood and realized it was the same box.’

Two years later, Ms Beverley, who was seven months pregnant, was told by police that they believed they had found Sunny on Legacy’s site.

Sunny’s mother said: ‘It was so sad, I was losing sleep and feeling so weak.

‘Thoughts were going around in my head that I was going to lose this baby and people were saying ‘oh, don’t be stupid, don’t feel like that, you’ll be fine, you’re too far away now’.

‘But the thought of what happened to Sunny, what happened to this pregnancy, was weighing heavily on my mind and ruined the last two months of my pregnancy.’

Speaking about Bush, Ms Beverley said: ‘As a human being I think we are all capable of doing bad things.

‘Our morality prevents us from doing this. And what clouds his thought process is something he has to experience.

‘He will pay for what he did.’

Because Ms. Beverley’s son died shortly before the 24th week of her pregnancy, Bush was unable to face the most serious charges in Sunny’s case.

The mother is now campaigning for changes to the law and said: ‘I made her life have meaning just by talking about it and hoping to help other mothers.’

Bush was released on bail until a sentencing hearing on 27 July, but the judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, was warned that a prison sentence was ‘inevitable’.

Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said approximately 240 victim impact statements would be provided from people affected by the case before the sentencing hearing.

At a hearing in October, Bush admitted to 30 counts of fraud by false representation on the same 30 people.

He also admitted to four “fetus claim” scams in which he falsely presented ashes to women by calling them “the remains of their unborn babies.”

He also pleaded guilty to one count of fraud involving the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, and one count of forgery involving funeral plans between 2012 and 2024.

Before the hearing, affected families described Bush as ‘a monster who put us all through hell because of his own selfishness’.

Karen Dry, who trusted Bush with her parents’ funerals in 2016 and 2018, has been holding monthly vigils for the victims since the investigation began in 2024.

He told the Press Association he could never be sure whether the ashes Bush gave him were actually his parents, leaving behind the ‘heartbreaking’ possibility that they might not be together in death as they wished.

Michaela Baldwin, whose stepfather Danny Middleton was one of the bodies found in the area months after the cremation, said Bush ‘put us all into hell because of his own selfishness’.

Humberside Police launched an investigation into his business in March 2024 following a report of ‘concern regarding the care of the deceased’.

Police said 35 bodies found at the funeral home were taken to the morgue for identification, where it was determined that only four were supposed to be there, while the others were kept ‘much longer than necessary’.

Forensic teams also recovered a large quantity of human ash at the Hessle Road site; Some of these had name tags and letters attached to the box.

Police said it quickly became clear that some of these people’s families had already received ashes.

It was not possible to identify any of the ashes because the high temperatures required for cremation meant that the DNA was too fragmented for a profile to be recovered.

Police said other people were still waiting to receive ashes after Bush said his funeral had taken place, but those ashes were never found.