John Banyard, who organised the funeral of John Carlill and discovered the ashes he had been treasuring were not his friend’s, has spoken out as ‘raw emotion just built up inside me’
John Carlill is remembered for his wicked sense of humour by his friend John Banyard(Image: Submitted)
The friend of a man whose body was kept in Robert Bush’s funeral parlour for six months has spoken of his “raw emotion” after reading the open letter that the criminal Legacy funeral director wrote in apology to the families affected by his crimes. John Banyard was friends with John Carlill for 34 years, after meeting while working on Hull’s docks. He said Mr Carlill “thought of him as a son”, and he was entrusted with organising a small funeral for his friend after he passed away in September 2023.
But Mr Carlill was never cremated by Bush, and Mr Banyard had been keeping someone else’s ashes in his home for months. He has kept silent up to now, but said the letter penned by Bush shows what a “cold, callous person” he really is. “With this letter I want to talk about it,” Mr Banyard said. “It’s just that raw emotion that’s just built up inside me.
“John was a very close friend of 34 years. I met him while I was working on Hull docks. We both had a wicked sense of humour and we just hit it off really well. As far as I’m aware he didn’t have a family. John said to me ‘you’re my family, I think of you and I like to treat you as a son’. If he did have a family, I didn’t see them.”
When Mr Carlill became ill in June 2023, Mr Banyard stepped up to care for him. But due to his father’s increasing care needs, he had to step back from caring for Mr Carlill. However, when Mr Banyard’s father went into a care home, he told Mr Carlill he could resume his caring duties. “My father was in a care home. His needs were being met. I told him I’m now happy coming to look after you again. John said: ‘I’ve known you for 34 years – some marriages don’t last that long – and I don’t want strangers coming into the house’.”
Sadly, not long after Mr Banyard resumed his caring role for Mr Carlill, social services called to ask him to pay Mr Carlill a visit at his flat. Mr Banyard found his friend had sadly passed away. Paramedics arrived and confirmed Mr Carlill had suffered a heart attack. Mr Banyard began to make funeral arrangements for his friend.
Mr Banyard said: “The police officer asked who I was using as an undertaker. I said there’s somewhere called Legacy, it was a new office in Beverley and it’s not that far from me. I thought I’d use Legacy because I’ll be able to see John if he comes to Beverley.
“Robert Bush came along and shook my hand and said ‘God bless, God bless’, over and over again. Several days later he called me and asked me to meet him at the new office in Beverley. He kept repeating ‘God bless’, every sentence was finished with a ‘bless’ or a ‘God bless’. Initially at John’s home when he picked him up, he was a wonderful, warm-hearted bloke. He said leave everything to me, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It was everything you’d expect from an undertaker. He was real nicey nicey.”
Mr Banyard asked if it would be possible to visit John’s body when he was brought to the Beverley branch, but Bush refused, saying all the refrigeration was at Hessle Road. “I asked if I go down to Hessle Road, and can I possibly see John. He said: ‘Oh no I’m sorry you can’t do that. There’s several days of decomposition and as good as I am at the aesthetics he’s beyond redemption’. He said, however, you do have a legal right, but he said ‘we are all adults, aren’t we’. I bit my tongue and thought it’s just me, my emotions. I just went along with it.”
Mr Baynard went to the Hessle Road office to spend time with his friend’s closed coffin before the cremation, after Bush refused to let him see him. “When I did go down there it was like Fort Knox trying to get in,” Mr Banyard said. “It smelt real fresh, like someone had been going round with an air freshener.” He recalled seeing monitors and CCTV cameras. He added: “Bush came running out and grinning at me saying ‘you’ve got privacy’.” At this point, Mr Banyard said he thought “this isn’t right”.
Bush refused to let Mr Banyard attend the cremation, telling him he hadn’t paid for a service. Mr Banyard said: “I told him I’d like to follow the hearse from the premises and just attend, wherever it’s going to be. I just wanted to attend to see his coffin come out and say farewell. Bush said: ‘This is getting a bit silly this, you’ve just paid for a cremation, nothing else’. He said whoever I send him to, they aint going to be happy with you if you just turn up. You’ve just paid for a cremation. John didn’t want a funeral, just a cremation.”
Bush then started pushing Mr Banyard for payment, which was coming out of Mr Carlill’s estate. Despite Mr Banyard arranging for money to be sent, Bush continued to pressure him for cash. Mr Banyard says this continued up until the day he collected the ashes he believed to belong to his friend. He said: “Bush got the ashes and, before he handed the ashes over, he said: ‘This is embarrassing but I’ve had no money’. Like an idiot, I got my debit card out of my wallet. He thought about it, then said ‘it might come in later on’. He texted me on the night to say the money’s just come in.”
It was six months later, on March 6, 2024, that Mr Banyard was visited by Humberside Police’s Family Liaison Officers. Mr Banyard remembers the moment he was told the ashes he had been cherishing in his home did not belong to his friend. He said: “The officer said we believe we may have John Carlill’s body at the undertakers on Hessle Road. I told them there must be a mistake. I went to the table where John’s ashes still were – I found it comforting to have him in the house. I presented the Family Liaison Officer with a box and I said ‘there’s his name there, I’ve got his ashes’. She shook her head and said: ‘I’m sorry John but we believe the body is on Hessle Road’.”
Mr Banyard then gave police a watch he had that had belonged to Mr Carlill. They used DNA from the watch strap to confirm one of the bodies at Bush’s Hessle Road funeral home did indeed belong to Mr Carlill.
Mr Banyard said: “I have immense respect for the police – they went above and beyond – and huge respect for the Superintendent, Alan Curtis. He came to see me and told me what was going on. It instilled some confidence in me, we hadn’t been forgotten. The Family Liaison Officer, Jo Durham, embodied empathy, professionalism and compassion. The police accepted the ashes and we had a second funeral. I’m so grateful for East Riding of Yorkshire Council for organising it, and the cremation.”
Mr Banyard says it is “a comfort” that he reached out to his friend in the weeks before his death. He said: “My partner Janet said: ‘Don’t you think that was fate for you to go down there and say you’re going to be his carer again? You were meant to do that.’ That was just a few weeks before he passed and I never saw him again after that. I shook his hand, we embraced and he said I look forward to seeing you when you get back from holiday.
“Now with this letter, I’m livid, I think he is sorry he got caught. It’s just a narrative just to make him look like a broken man full of remorse. He is a nasty, evil, callous, cold person.”
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