Crisis staff found ‘unforgivable scene’ at convicted undertaker’s funeral home

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Linsey SmithEast Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

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Humberside Police removed 35 bodies and a quantity of ashes from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors on Hessle Road in March 2024

Warning: This article contains details some people may find distressing

An “unforgivable scene of entirely human making”.

That is how Kevin Curreri, managing director of Kenyon Emergency Services, described the scene that met crisis staff sent to Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.

Undertaker Robert Bush hoarded dozens of bodies and half a tonne of human ashes.

It emerged he also gave families the wrong ashes while their loved ones’ bodies were left at his site for months.

Linsey Smith/BBC

Kevin Curreri says his team tried to offer a small measure of comfort to affected families

Bush was the only individual charged in relation to events at the funeral home.

Humberside Police removed 35 bodies and the ashes of 167 people from Legacy’s parlour in Hessle Road following a “concern for care of the deceased” in March 2024.

The BBC has discovered Bush also kept more than 1,000 items, including love letters, baby clothes and treasured possessions belonging to the dead and their families.

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Robert Bush was told by a judge at Hull Crown Court he will go to jail when he is sentenced on 27 July

Curreri’s team is typically brought in by governments in the wake of natural disasters, plane crashes and terrorism incidents, but this time the six-strong team found itself deployed to Hull, tasked with helping reunite affected families with sentimental items collected by Bush.

Curreri, a former police officer, said Bush’s “intentional negligence” was “pretty difficult to comprehend”.

He described how possessions had been either “thrown” into corners or bagged with rubbish, rather than being placed in the coffins of loved ones ahead of burials or cremations.

“It was like a hoarder’s house with garbage bags everywhere… a mess,” added Curreri.

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Despite having previously worked on major incidents, including the Grenfell Tower fire and the Manchester Arena bombing, both in 2017, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Mr Curreri admitted his team was shocked by what they encountered in Hull.

Despite “dealing with death all the time”, some staff asked not to work on the Legacy project after the discovery of baby clothes and other items “that reminded them of their own families”.

According to Curreri, human remains and personal possessions had been treated “so disrespectfully” that it showed “a pretty significant breach of trust”.

He added: “We see a lot and it was something that stood out as pretty horrific.”

Linsey Smith/ BBC

One of the experts involved in photographing hundreds of items, including love letters and clothing, recovered from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors

Curreri’s company was appointed by Hull City Council in April 2024 following the removal of the bodies and ashes, when the scene had been released by police.

He said his team transported the items to its headquarters in Reading, Berkshire, where they were cleaned and photographed.

Each item appeared in a catalogue “so that families could go through and identify the items that they wanted to claim”, he said.

The team “worked against the clock” to return possessions to victims’ families before they held second funerals, said Curreri.

Items included flags that were meant to have been draped on coffins, sports shirts intended to be a loved one’s final outfit and wedding photographs.

Families were elated when they were reunited with items, enabling them to finally fulfill deceased relatives’ final wishes, said Curreri.

The team helped victims’ families “gain control, restore dignity and respect”, he said.

Despite exhaustive attempts to return items to families, the BBC understands some objects recovered from the funeral parlour remain unclaimed.

Curreri said: “The volume of the items far exceeds what I would expect to be produced by… 35 bodies that were discovered and the ashes.”

The unclaimed items will be held until further instructions are received from Hull City Council.

Linsey Smith/BBC

Items recovered from the parlour were catalogued and stored before being returned to families

Emma Hardy, MP for Hull West and Haltemprice, said the scenes described by the crisis team were “unforgivable” and added further weight to calls for regulation of the funeral industry.

At present, there are no laws or regulations governing undertakers.

“If we don’t regulate the funeral industry, if we don’t look seriously at it, then there is nothing to stop this happening again,” said Hardy.

In November 2024, the government confirmed it was reviewing the funeral industry after the family of one Legacy victim visited Westminster to campaign.

On Thursday, a judge at the city’s crown court told Bush to expect jail after he admitted 30 charges of denying a lawful burial and one charge of stealing charity collection money.

Last October, he admitted 36 fraud charges, including one of selling fake funeral policies to 172 people.

He was granted conditional bail by the court and will be sentenced for all 67 charges on 27 July.

More on this story

‘I’m trying to forgive undertaker who kept my dead baby’

Ashes recovered from Legacy funeral home reburied

‘Beautiful’ vigil held for Legacy funeral dead

Man given ‘wife’s ashes’ before her cremation

All 35 bodies in funeral inquiry identified

Hull

Funerals

Hull City Council