Funeral director in Britain mixed human ashes and gave others' remains — sentenced to 20 years in prison

A funeral director in the United Kingdom was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the court found him guilty of giving other people’s ashes to grieving families instead of cremating the bodies of their relatives.

Police, during a search of the funeral home "Legacy Independent Funeral Directors" in the city of Hull in March 2024, found around 35 bodies and more than 100 urns containing ashes, which led to an investigation into the company’s practices.

According to the indictment, Robert Bush mixed ashes from different cremated bodies and created a stockpile of remains which he then gave to grieving families when they asked to receive the ashes of their loved ones. The court heard that he defrauded nearly 200 families and collected around €657,000.

Judge: "caused pain and suffering on a scale that is difficult to describe"

At the sentencing at the Court in Hull, Judge Hilliard told the former funeral director that "he caused pain and suffering on a scale that is difficult to describe."

The court was informed that relatives of 46 people cremated between 2017 and 2024 received other people’s ashes, while the families of a further 11 people never received the remains. Bush admitted guilt to 67 criminal offences, including depriving 30 people of a dignified and proper burial, theft from 12 charitable organisations and fraudulent activity over a period of almost 12 years.

At the five-day trial, which began on Monday, the prosecution said Bush had breached his clients’ trust "almost on an industrial scale." The judge warned that no one who used Legacy’s cremation services "at any time can be completely sure that they received the ashes of their relative" and added: "He must have had a callous side that allowed him to behave towards the living and the dead in the way he did, and he was very confident that he would get away with what he was doing."

Photo: MIA