Funeral boss Robert Bush lied about burying dad, daughter says

A funeral director who deceived grieving families for years — including telling one woman her father had been properly buried when he hadn’t — has shown absolutely no remorse, his victim says, as he prepares to be sentenced for a string of serious offences.

Robert Bush, who ran a funeral business serving families across the region, is due before a judge later today. He faces multiple charges related to the mishandling of human remains, fraud, and denying families the proper burials they paid for and were promised.

Daughter speaks out before sentencing

For one woman, today’s hearing has been a long time coming. She told reporters outside court that Bush looked her in the eye and reassured her that her father had been laid to rest with dignity. That was a lie. It’s a betrayal she says she’ll carry for the rest of her life.

“He’s never once said sorry. Not to me, not to any of us,” she said. “He sat there and lied to my face while I was grieving, and he felt nothing.”

She described the past two years since the truth emerged as a kind of second bereavement. And she said she wouldn’t feel closure even after sentencing. But she wanted to be here anyway. For her dad.

A pattern of deception spanning years

Prosecutors say Bush’s offences weren’t isolated mistakes. Investigators identified at least 14 families who were misled about what happened to their loved ones’ remains. In several cases, families paid fees of between £1,200 and £3,500 for funeral services that were either not carried out or performed in ways that fell far below legal and professional standards.

Bush is also accused of falsifying documentation to cover his tracks, a detail that investigators say complicated the inquiry significantly. The case took more than 18 months to build.

Still, authorities say the full scale of the harm may never be completely known.

Regulatory failure under scrutiny

The case has raised uncomfortable questions about oversight of the funeral industry, which remains one of the least regulated sectors in the country. A spokesperson for the local council said the authority had “fully cooperated with the police investigation from its earliest stages” and had since reviewed its licensing procedures.

But critics say that’s not enough. Consumer groups have been calling for mandatory national licensing of funeral directors for years, and cases like Bush’s keep making that argument for them.

The funeral industry is currently subject to a voluntary code of practice, which Bush’s business was registered under at the time of the offences.

What happens next

Sentencing is expected to take place this afternoon. Bush faces a potential custodial sentence, though his legal team is understood to have submitted mitigation arguments ahead of today’s hearing.

For the families waiting outside the courtroom, no sentence will feel adequate. But they say they need to hear it nonetheless.

The daughter whose father was at the centre of the case said she planned to read a victim impact statement in court. She’d been writing it, she said, for two years.