A woman whose unborn baby’s body was found in a paper bag on the floor of funeral director Robert Bush’s business sobbed as she told him: “I trusted you with the most precious person in my life.”
Jasmine Beverley said she chose to use Legacy Independent Funeral Directors when her son Sunny Beverley-Conlin was “born sleeping” on May 13th 2022.
The court heard Beverley and her partner Ben chose Bush because she had previously used him for her late father’s funeral.
She tearfully told Hull Crown Court: “My son Sunny was born sleeping, but he was loved long before he entered this world and he will be loved for the rest of my life.
“When a parent loses a baby, all they hope for is that their child will be treated with dignity, care and respect.
“That is why we place enormous trust in the people responsible for caring for our loved ones after death.”
She turned to face Bush in the dock, who showed no emotion as she told him: “I trusted you with the most precious person in my life.”
The court heard the couple visited Sunny at Legacy on June 16th and left him a photograph of the family, a blue fleece blanket and some flowers.
A small service took place on June 17th, at Legacy’s chapel, and the couple understood that Sunny was to be cremated at Chanterlands Avenue Crematorium.
They collected his ashes on March 30th 2023, when Bush handed them the little blue coffin and told them that Sunny’s ashes were inside in an envelope, the court heard.
Sunny’s remains were recovered at Legacy almost two years after he was born, when a police officer found them in a brown paper bag on the floor.
Beverley sobbed as she said: “When I discovered what had happened, it reopened that trauma in a way I cannot fully describe.
“It felt like being pulled back into the darkest time of my life. The grief, anxiety and distress returned with such intensity that I again found myself struggling mentally and emotionally.
She went on to say: “Your actions have taken away something that can never be replaced: the peace of believing our loved ones were treated with care and respect after death.
“The reality I now live with is that my baby boy Sunny has spent more time in your possession than he ever did with his own family.
“I have to live with the fact that my son was kept for so long without my knowledge, and that when he was eventually found he was in a brown paper bag on the floor.
“As a mother, that is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Beverley was one of four women who was given the wrong ashes for their unborn babies by Bush.
All four gave emotional statements in court on Tuesday, with one, Lucy Ness, saying she had been left with “nothing but an empty bag” to remind her of her child.
Earlier on the day, a grieving daughter said the horrors at Bush’s funeral parlour made her think of “bodies found in Auschwitz”, while another described the fraudster treating her “lovely” father “like a piece of meat”.
A court heard how Bush was a “cruel conman” who “fooled a lot of people in Hull with his mild manner” while using their grief to fund his lifestyle.
Bush, 48, is to be sentenced for 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims.
Hull Crown Court heard how he kept 31 bodies at his funeral home while falsely telling their families they had been cremated and giving them the ashes of a stranger.
As the second day of the sentencing hearing got under way on Tuesday, the court heard how the family of Jim Porter, 80, whose body was recovered from Legacy with his hospital identification bands still on his wrists and ankle, noticed at his funeral that his coffin did not look big enough for him.
His daughter Tina Thames said: “Dad told me and my brother and sister that he didn’t want a fancy or expensive funeral.
“He just wanted us to celebrate his life.
“Legacy Independent Funeral Directors were a local firm and offered a reasonably priced service.
“It seemed a good choice for us. How wrong we were.”
She went on to say: “When the police told me there was a possibility that dad was still at Legacy, I was devastated.
“I had nightmares and thoughts of bodies just piled up came into my mind.
“The only way I can describe it is like seeing images of the bodies found in Auschwitz during the war.”
The court also heard from the family of Terry White, 73, whose body was recovered from Legacy more than two months after his death on Christmas Eve 2023.
His family collected ashes from Legacy, which were in a box with a Chanterlands Crematorium label.
But when Mr White’s daughter Angela Scottow contacted the crematorium to ask for a plot near her sister’s, staff said they had no record of him being cremated there.
Ms Scottow’s victim impact statement said: “Dad was such a lovely man and Robert Bush treated him like a piece of meat.”
As well as the bodies found at Legacy, the court heard Bush committed fraud in relation to 57 sets of ashes – including 46 families who were given the wrong ashes, and 11 families who were never given any at all.
Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said the total monetary value of this fraud was £86,868.
Among these was Alan Chearman, whose family collected his ashes on July 26 2022, wanting to scatter them on that day as it was the anniversary of his son’s death.
Records showed he was not cremated until August that year, and Bush did not collect the ashes until October.
When police searched the Legacy site they seized a box with a sticker on which read: “Woodland’s crematorium – cremated remains of the late Alan Chearman.”
His widow Shelley Chearman looked towards Bush in court as she told him: “You fooled a lot of people in Hull with your mild manner, when in fact you are a cruel conman. You use people’s grief to fund your lifestyle.”
The court heard that over 11 years Bush also defrauded 226 people who paid him for funeral plans, pocketing more than £500,000.
Prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said none of these funeral plans were referred to a third-party insurer and money paid for them was transferred into Bush and his wife’s personal accounts.
The court heard a total of £562,117 was paid to Legacy by those believing that the money was being invested into a legitimate funeral policy, many of which were taken out by parents, so that their children did not have to pay for their funerals.
Hull Crown Court heard that over 12 years, Bush 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.
In April Bush pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial, and theft from 12 charities including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support.
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.
