Undertaker Robert Bush's crimes: A reporter's account of the Legacy Independent Funeral Directors case

This story contains details some might find distressing.

I've reported on many criminal cases before, but nothing like that of undertaker Robert Bush.

Now the case is over, we can report on what it was like to follow a story that began when whistleblowers raised concerns about Legacy Independent Funeral Directors with Humberside Police in March 2024.

Bush, the former owner of Legacy in Hull, admitted 67 offences, including fraudulent trading, denying 30 people a decent and proper burial, and giving some bereaved relatives the ashes of strangers.

The scale of Bush's offending was extraordinary. Police identified 300 victims.

Some were families who had paid Bush for funeral plans and services.

Others were relatives left questioning whether the ashes they had received really belonged to their loved ones.

There were also the deceased, whose bodies he had been trusted to bury or cremate with dignity.

Bush's scores of victims meant seats in courtroom four at Hull Crown Court for his five-day sentencing were in high demand.

Every day, diligent ushers stood like bouncers at the court's heavy, soundproof doors. They ensured families were given priority to see the man who wronged their loved ones face justice.

Court staff escorted them in with boxes of tissues, paper cups of water and a kind hand on their arms. Some were wiping away tears before they even walked into the room.

Fearful of what they were about to hear.

Their worries were not misplaced. The details of Bush's crimes were harrowing.

Among them, discarding stillborn premature baby Sunny Beverley-Conlin on the floor in a paper bag, and abandoning one victim naked on the floor to "let nature take its course".

They are descriptions one grieving mother said "will never leave me".

In his sentencing remarks, the judge acknowledged Bush "caused anguish and pain on a scale beyond comprehension".

"The defendant was so preoccupied with his own enrichment that he behaved in a shocking and disgraceful way," he said.

Bush's apparent detachment was striking throughout all the court proceedings I witnessed.

The family man appeared disconnected from the pain he inflicted on his victims, from the grieving families he betrayed and from the local community who saw him fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund a luxurious lifestyle of holidays, expensive hobbies and jewellery.

In October 2025 Bush pleaded guilty to about half of the 67 charges.

In simple terms, he admitted defrauding families out of genuine funerals and giving them the wrong ashes. But - at the same time - denying he had failed to provide their loved ones with a proper burial.

It left families, and journalists, scratching their heads.

How could both be true?

It left families facing an eight-week trial which was scheduled for October 2026.

In a court hearing in December 2025, Bush's legal team tried to persuade the judge to throw his case out.

They claimed he could never have a fair trial because the sheer number of funerals he had conducted meant an unbiased jury could not be assembled.

Bush had hosted 2,000 funerals, they said.

But the judge demanded to know the postcodes where Bush had conducted funerals and explored whether jurors could be brought in by coach from outlying areas.

It was not Bush's only attempt to evade justice.

His team's next move was to argue intense media attention meant a fair trial was impossible and the proceedings should be stopped.

The judge unequivocally rejected those arguments and said the coverage had been "fair, accurate and within the rules".

When Bush changed his plea to guilty to all 67 charges in April 2026, he walked into court as he had at every previous hearing - refusing to let families see his face.

What stayed with those who heard the evidence was not the criminal offences alone that hurt families - it was how Bush betrayed them at their most vulnerable.

He behaved in a way utterly at odds to their expectations of a funeral director.

As Jasmine Beverley, mother of stillborn Sunny told him: "I trusted you. I have to live with that."

Hull Crown Court is an unassuming setting for such high drama.

There is no oak panelling, no green leather-bound legal textbooks like the courtrooms you see on TV dramas.

But while the setting was ordinary, the consequences of this case were not.

It highlighted an unregulated funeral industry in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and raised questions about whether two local authorities fulfilled all of their responsibilities regarding the registration of deaths.

It prompted comment from the prime minister and a promise to review laws governing the funeral industry.

And after sentencing, the families' dignified conduct was remarked on by the judge.

Outside court they hugged and supported each other and stood shoulder to shoulder demanding regulation.

A community united in grief, and in hope. Hoping others never have to endure their pain.