John Carlill’s friend wants to speak to Robert Bush and get answers
John Carlill
On Friday, July 31 2026, Hull funeral director Robert Bush was jailed for 20 years.
The 48-year-old left bodies to decompose at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors’ premises in the city, gave bereaved families the ashes of other people and stole money donated from collections at funerals.The “horror” and revulsion felt by the families who had lost loved ones was revealed at Hull Crown Court during a series of powerful and harrowing victim statements during the first four days of the five-day sentencing hearing.
Over the coming weeks, we will be publishing those statements – from families who had cruelly been taken advantage of when they were at their most vulnerable. Their stories need to be told, and we will ensure that they are, for as long as it takes.
John Savile Carlill was my very close friend and when he died I carried a lot of guilt about the way he died because I had been caring for him. My own father also required my care and I unfortunately found myself in a position where I was no longer able to care for both John and my own father at the same time and I ended up having to stop my care for John.
I felt I had failed John by having to stop my care for him, and I felt I had failed him again when he had not received the cremation I had made arrangements for following his death. I felt it was my bad choices that had led to this, or at least contributed to the situation.
I found it incredibly hard to get my head around what had happened at Legacy and what Mr Bush had done. I find it hard to talk about what Mr Bush has done. It hits a raw nerve every time and is something I get upset about fast, so I find it best to avoid any situation where his name or the subject of Legacy is brought up.
All of this has made me have a distrust in people now. If you can’t trust a funeral undertaker, who can you trust? How can someone be so callous, cold and calculated? Bush shook my hand and was saying ‘god bless’ to me. You let them take the stress to take some of it off you. What he said sounded good at the time, but then to be betrayed the way I have makes you lose faith in people.
The money was not a great amount but that is not the point. How can somebody take money from you in such a hurtful way. You entrust upon them that they’ll do the work and you pay the money for that to happen.
I had the bank telling me that Bush should have my money, and yet he was denying it and it was to the point where I offered him my bank card so he could take the payment again. He didn’t actually take my card off me, telling me he could wait a little longer, but knowing what I know now I can’t help feeling he may have wondered if he could get another £1,000 off me. Then low and behold he got the money.
In hindsight I can see he had been considering taking a further payment from me. The bank had told me the money had left their bank but they were unable to say if it had reached his bank yet or not. They suggested it should have done as the payment I had made was an instant transaction.
It was embarrassing the way he pressured me by saying he had not received the payment, when he had put the invoice through my door almost immediately. With regards to the second funeral for John, without the help of the council I don’t know how I would have done it. I have to say I expected further problems the second time and I questioned being betrayed again, but it was help that was delivered in a dignified manner.
When I received John’s ashes back it brought back all the feelings of when I had been informed that John’s ashes weren’t actually his, but in our hearts we knew it really was John this time and couldn’t be anyone else. The council helped a lot but I found myself being very cynical with them at first wondering what was going to go on.
Bush had been seen as a pinnacle of the community and what he did was the lowest of the low. I feel like I am tarring everyone with the same brush when I say I can’t trust again. I blame myself, because of all the funeral people we could have used I picked that one because it was local to us, just up the road. It should have been easy. I picture John ‘up there’ telling me I’ve messed it all up.
We’re not religious and Legacy accommodated this with a simple funeral. Bush said I could ring him any time of the day or night and he would speak to me. He took advantage of me emotionally. He told me I could see John’s body but when I went he wouldn’t let me. He told me it was my legal right to see him but then said ‘come on we’re all adults’.
He said John’s face looked bad and that whilst people can do stuff with make-up John was ‘too bad’. You don’t say that to people. I am now at the stage where I would like to sit and have a civil conversation with Bush to ask him why. To see what happened and if he has any remorse at all. To see if there were any mitigating circumstances.
I’d just like to speak to him and get answers. I want to impress upon him how his actions have affected me, and I want to gain an understanding of what he’s done. I always think there is mitigation somewhere and I want to know what his is as I think it would help me.
It breaks my heart to think some people will never know who they have got when they were handed back their loved ones ashes from Bush, but we were so incredibly lucky to actually get John back. I felt I let John down to begin with and was then made to feel like I let him down again. I pass the old Legacy premises every day, and it’s a reminder every day of how I feel.
John Banyard