A funeral director has admitted preventing a lawful burial after 30 bodies and a quantity of ashes were found at a funeral home in Hull in 2024.

Robert Bush, 48, had previously admitted to dozens of counts of fraud at a hearing in October, after police raided the premises of Legacy funeral home on Hessle Road over concern for care of the dead.

He was charged with 67 offences in total and pleaded guilty to the remaining charges at Hull crown court on Thursday.

He also admitted to stealing from charities including the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, the Dogs Trust, the RNLI and WISHH, a local hospital charity.

He was granted bail on the same conditions as he was previously under.
Accepting the defence’s application for a pre-sentence report into the circumstances of the crimes, Mr Justice Hilliard said “everybody accepts a custodial sentence is inevitable in this case”.

Outside the courtroom, one of the victims, Michaela Baldwin, whose stepfather’s body was found in the funeral home after they had been given what they believed to be his ashes, said the two-year wait for justice had been “horrible”. She said she was thinking of her stepfather, Danny Middleton, when the charge was read out and when Bush said “guilty” in response.

“[Her stepfather] is finally getting the justice he deserves for being treated the way he was,” she said. “For us, to finally hear ‘guilty’ is what we were wanting but for him to be granted bail and walk out of here was a kick in the teeth.”

She said the families had been in agony while the defendant “stretched it out” by not pleading guilty. “We had to sit there with our families at Christmas with this hanging over, while he’s [initially pleaded guilty] so he can spend Christmas with his family.”

Baldwin said her family had now received the correct ashes, insuring they had the certification, and some family members planned to have jewellery made or have them tattooed. “Luckily they hadn’t done anything with the other ashes,” she said.

Bush has so far made no apology to the families involved – though it would not help, Baldwin said. “He won’t say sorry and it wouldn’t mean nowt anyway,” she said. “He did it because of pure greed, just wanting the money. It’s sickening.”

She said the families of the 29 people whose bodies were found there, plus others who did not know if they had received the right ashes, were “up and down”. “We all want him put away and we all want it done with,” she said, adding that she had not been sleeping in the run-up to the hearing.

A sentencing hearing was scheduled for 27 July 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, such was the scale of the crimes.