Robert Bush's bank accounts have been frozen and his assets seized as prosecutors attempt to recover cash he fleeced from his victims. The Crown Prosecution Service plans to reimburse as many people as possible by taking control of his accounts and assets, the BBC reports, after the funeral director began a 20-year prison sentence.
Decade of abuse at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors
Bush, who gave bereaved families the wrong ashes and stockpiled the decomposing bodies of 35 people, broke the trust of his clients at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors on an almost industrial scale for more than a decade. His misconduct ranged from mixing up ashes to swindling vulnerable pensioners with bogus funeral schemes, and he ripped off dozens of people, including someone who used to work for him as a pall bearer.
During his trial last week, the jury heard how he spent £42,000 on holidays, £21,000 on his motorcycle racing hobby and more than £17,000 on home improvements after defrauding mourning families. Financial records show the spending took place between 2017 and 2024, and the court was told that £3,076,522 was paid into his business and personal accounts in those seven years.
CPS plans to confiscate proceeds
Laura Tams KC, deputy chief crown prosecutor at the CPS, said: "We will be looking at him, at the financial aspects of this case, to see if we can confiscate any of the proceeds of his crimes and try to compensate the families."
She went on: "This was not a case of somebody that had recently fallen on hard times. I think the scale of the offending, the length of time it had gone on for, showed that really this had become something of his business model."
Ms Tams added that the CPS's priority had been to build a "robust" case showing the full extent of the 48-year-old funeral director's offending "so that the families could get justice".
Lavish spending detailed
Prosecutors said his holiday spending over the seven years included £6,400 on three trips to Center Parcs, £3,800 on a holiday to Italy and £3,000 on a trip to Arizona. It was on that Arizona trip with his daughters that the "horror scene" at the funeral home was discovered and police were called.
He also spent £1,000 at jeweller Boodles, £3,385 on meals including a £250 meal at Covent Garden restaurant Clos Maggiore, and on theatre trips, records show. In police interviews Bush said debts left him unable to pay for cremations, but in court it emerged he took £162,000 a year for himself and transferred an average of £52,000 a year to his wife, Vikki Bush.
The prosecutor said previously: "However, the turnover reported to HMRC in these years does not reflect this. It is not possible to reconcile the handling of cash within these accounts. During this time, his profligate personal spending and transfers to his wife, Vikki Bush, account for £879,655.94."
"The financial situation within the business was not dire, but likely mismanaged, and the expenditure reflected Mr Bush's priorities and not those whom he was meant to be serving," the prosecutor continued. "For all of Mr Bush's claims about his finances, it should be borne in mind that the cost of a single cremation was around £500, and yet Mr Bush chose not to deal with those bodies entrusted to him, but to operate as he chose and spend the money on himself and others."
Victim: 'A wolf in sheep's clothing'
Karen Dry, of Cottingham, Hull, told the Mirror she may never know if she actually has her mum and dads' ashes. The mum-of-two said she is praying Bush is served justice and described him as having gone from the "consummate professional" to "Frankenstein".
"He was charming. He was pleasant and very patient, he was a consummate professional. He had a certain pleasantness about him. He had a nice personality. But we realised he was actually a wolf in sheep's clothing. The truth is you can't DNA-test ashes. This man has affected hundreds of families. A small village full. There's probably more Frankensteins elsewhere - hiding in plain sight."
