To grieving families and colleagues, Hull funeral director Robert Bush seemed a “nice guy”.
But behind closed doors, he was cutting corners financially, providing sub-standard coffins and DIY flowers to the bereaved, and funeral staff were refusing to work with him over unpaid bills.
Sky News has spoken to a celebrant who worked closely with Bush, 48, for several years. On Thursday, the funeral director pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful burial.
The woman, who we are calling Sarah, was contracted by him to lead funeral services.
She’s agreed to speak anonymously – she still works in the funeral sector in Hull and says there are “repercussions” for any association with Bush.
During an hour-long interview, Sarah described Bush as “a bit of a cheeky chappy”.
“We got on well,” she says, describing the funeral director as “very polite, well-spoken, very empathetic and generally a nice guy”.
“I think that’s what makes everything that’s happened since so disgusting.”
But Sarah says she grew increasingly concerned at what was happening at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors.
“There’d been occasions where Bush’s cheques had bounced,” she says. “Or he paid me in cash, and several bearers had stopped working with him over unpaid bills.”
“I even offered to help with his paperwork,” she says, after Bush told her “he was feeling overwhelmed”.
“He politely declined, for which I’m grateful,” she adds.
Beyond how he treated colleagues, Sarah says she witnessed “things getting cheaper” at the funeral home, especially in the two years leading up to Bush’s arrest.
Legacy’s city centre premises on Hessle Road, where police discovered the remains of 30 bodies in March 2024, was starting to look “increasingly shabby”.
Sarah describes its on-site chapel, where Bush offered to hold services for grieving families, as “very untidy”.
“It was not the respectful, calm place you would have hoped for,” she says.
“The order of service, for example, he was printing them himself and they were just on thin bits of folded A4 paper, rather than on good quality card.”
“A number of florists had stopped working for him because he hadn’t paid, so he started actually doing his own flower arranging,” Sarah adds.
“On one occasion he’d had a deceased turned away from a local crematoria because the coffin was sub-standard.
“I believe he was making them up himself, almost like flat-pack furniture,” Sarah says – while still charging families “the normal price”.
Broken promises
Sarah described the last time she worked with Bush, several months before his arrest.
“He was just not himself and I didn’t want to be associated with a funeral director that wasn’t as professional,” she explains.
The breaking point came during a service at the funeral home’s on-site chapel when Bush didn’t show up.
“I had to bring the deceased into the chapel myself,” she says, shaking her head.
“He promised the family that they would be able to livestream the service for family members who weren’t able to make it, but he didn’t have that facility, and I ended up using my mobile phone to record it.”
The music system “wasn’t set up correctly” and, on this occasion, there were no flowers “to make the place look more appropriate to be holding a funeral”.
“That was the last time I worked with him,” she says.
She expressed her concerns to him over text message but never got a response.
Google users can see more from their preferred sources in search results – click here to make yours Sky News
‘Did I bury the right person?’
Months later, along with stunned families, Sarah learnt what police had found at the site where she had led services.
“It was just unbelievable,” she says. “I certainly didn’t have any inkling. Financial? Yes. But everything else? No.”
More than two years after his arrest, Bush admitted 30 counts of preventing lawful and decent burials, relating to the remains found at his funeral home, as well as 30 counts of defrauding families.
There were four counts of fraud relating to mothers of babies lost during pregnancy, who had asked Bush to arrange the cremation of their unborn babies.
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
And he also admitted defrauding more than 50 families, relating to a large quantity of ashes found at the funeral home.
“Where did he think it was going to end? How was he going to dispose of all the bodies?” Sarah asks.
Describing it as a “nightmare”, she adds: “I personally don’t know [if] the burial that I did for him, whether I’ve actually buried the right person. And that’s something that lives with me.
“So I can’t believe how much it’ll affect the families that have been involved.”
