A disgraced funeral director who failed to bury or cremate people and gave bereaved relatives the ashes of strangers has been jailed for 20 years.

Robert Bush admitted 67 offences after 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes were found by police raiding Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull in March 2024.

Sentencing him at Hull Crown Court, Judge Justice Hilliard told the former undertaker he had “caused anguish and pain on a scale beyond comprehension”.

He also barred Bush, who defrauded nearly 200 families out of £500,000, from being a company director for 14 years.

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The defendant sat with his head lowered in the glass-fronted dock and showed no reaction when his sentence was passed.

Hilliard told the court: “I have no doubt [Bush] behaved in such a deceitful way because of financial greed.

“He must have a heartless side to him – which allowed him to treat the living and the dead in the way he did, and he was very confident he would get away with what he was doing.”

Hilliard warned that no-one who had used Legacy’s cremations services “at any time can be absolutely certain they received the ashes of their loved one”.

“I don’t think I have ever known offences affecting so many people and so deeply.”

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