Funeral director ‘will pay for what he’s done’, says mother of stillborn child

A fraudulent funeral director “will pay for what he’s done”, the mother of a stillborn child whose body was discovered years after his funeral has said.

Robert Bush, 48, who gave grieving families the wrong ashes while their loved ones’ bodies were left at his site for months, pleaded guilty on Thursday at Hull Crown Court to 30 counts of preventing a lawful burial.

Police found 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes when they raided Legacy Independent Funeral Directors’ in Hull in March 2024.

Jasmine Beverley’s son, Sunny, was stillborn in May 2022 and his funeral was arranged by Bush at Legacy’s site in Hull.

Ms Beverley said she and her husband were initially concerned that they had received his ashes in the same box they had brought Sunny in.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Ms Beverley said: “It was the one that we’d had Sunny in originally and I questioned that and I thought surely he would have been put into the cremator in the box and they won’t have taken him out, so why is it the same box?

“And my husband said maybe he’s just got a similar one but I noticed a nick in the actual wood and I knew 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 at Legacy’s site.

Sunny’s mother said: “It was very distressing, I was losing sleep and just feeling so powerless.

“The thoughts that were going on in my head, that I’m going to lose this baby, and people saying, ‘oh, don’t be silly, don’t feel like that, you’ll be fine, you’re so far now’.

“But the thought of what had happened to Sunny, happening to this pregnancy, was playing heavily on my mind, and it ruined the last two months of my pregnancy.”

Discussing Bush, Ms Beverley said: “I think as a human being, we are all capable of doing evil things.

“Our morality stops us from doing that. And what’s blurred his thought process is something that he’s got to live with.

“He will pay for what he’s done.”

Bush could not face the most serious charges in relation to Sunny’s case as Ms Beverley’s son died less than 24 weeks into her pregnancy.

The mother is now campaigning for a change in the law and said: “I was able to make his life mean something just by talking about him, by hopefully helping other mothers.”

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

Bush was bailed until his sentencing hearing on July 27, but was warned by the judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, that a prison sentence was “inevitable”.

Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said there would be about 240 victim impact statements provided before the sentencing hearing from people who had been affected by the case.

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

He also pleaded guilty to four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”.

He admitted a further charge of fraud covering the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, and one of fraudulent trading relating to funeral plans between 2012 and 2024.

Before the hearing, affected families described Bush as “a monster” who “put us all through hell for his own selfishness”.

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

She told the Press Association she would never be sure whether the ashes she was given by Bush were actually her parents, leaving the “heartbreaking” possibility that they might not be together in death as they wanted.

Michaela Baldwin, whose stepfather, Danny Middleton, was one of the bodies found at the site, months after he was supposed to have been cremated, said Bush had “put us all through hell for his own selfishness”.

Humberside Police launched an investigation into his business after a report of “concern for care of the deceased” in March 2024.

The force said that the 35 bodies found at the funeral home were taken to the mortuary to be identified, where it was found that only four should have been there and the others had been kept “much longer than necessary”.

Forensic teams also recovered large quantities of human ashes from the Hessle Road site, some with name labels and letters attached to the box.

Police said it soon became apparent that some of the families of those people had already received ashes.

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

The force said other people were still waiting to receive ashes after being told by Bush that the cremation had taken place, but these ashes were never found.