Crooked funeral director Robert Bush spent more than £42,000 on holidays while he was defrauding scores of customers, a court has heard.
Spending and fraud
Bush, 48, is to be sentenced for 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims at his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors. Financial records submitted to Hull Crown Court showed that between 2017 and 2024, when he was arrested, Bush spent more than £42,000 on holidays, £21,000 on motorcycle racing and £17,400 on home improvements.
Prosecutor Steven Ball said that between March 17 2017 and April 8 2024, almost £1.49 million was transferred into Bush’s personal bank account from Legacy business accounts. Mr Ball said that in that time the total received in Legacy and Bush’s accounts was more than £3 million, but the turnover reported to Companies House and HM Revenue and Customs did not reflect this.
Impact on victims
The court heard how he breached the trust placed in him by grieving families “on an almost industrial scale”, by keeping bodies for months after they should have been cremated, giving out the wrong ashes, taking money for funeral plans without making any of the arrangements, and stealing charity donations collected at services.
Bush also stole money from 12 charities by not passing on donations collected at his funeral services, including the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, Help for Heroes, the RNLI and some local groups.
Details of spending
His holiday spending over seven years included £6,400 on three trips to Center Parcs, £3,800 on a trip to Italy, and £3,000 on the holiday he was taking with his daughter in Arizona when the horrors at the funeral home were discovered. Records showed that in 2022, the year he failed to cremate Jasmine Beverley’s baby Sunny Beverley-Conlin, he spent more than £9,000 on camping expenses.
Prosecutors also highlighted almost £10,000 of retail spending, including £1,000 in Boodles jewellers, and £3,385 on restaurants, including £250 for a meal at fashionable Covent Garden restaurant Clos Maggiore.
Guilty pleas
In April, Bush pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial, and theft from the 12 charities. He had already admitted 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to bodies found at the site, and four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”. Bush also pleaded guilty to 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.
