David Burton was a cherished dad and grandad
David Burton
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.
My Grandad is David Burton and he was 75 years old when he died on 21st October 2023. As one of the families affected by the Legacy Funeral Directors situation, we are angry, sad and broken.
The loss of our father and grandfather was one of the hardest and most upsetting times of our lives. Until his passing we had never had to organise a funeral before.
Rob Bush made us feel at ease and we believed him to be kind and caring. Rob guided us through an extremely hard process. He assured us that our loved one would be treated with as much love and care as any human being deserves.
After Grandad’s funeral, we began to piece together our lives, navigating our world without him. We felt fortunate to have received his ashes back in time for our first Christmas without him.
With those ashes we made necklaces so we would always have him with us. When we received the news, four months after his funeral that Robert Bush had never laid our beloved Dad and Grandad to rest, it shattered our world. The grief we were slowly beginning to live with then consumed us for a second time.
We had mistakenly placed our trust in Rob. He did not treat Grandad with the dignity and respect he deserved. In reality, Rob had deceived us. He had abandoned and hidden our loved one for months and had given us a stranger’s ashes, with a smile on his face.
The hurt, betrayal and confusion this has caused our family was hard to live with. After everything had come to light, we began to look back and question things. Was Grandad actually in the coffin when we said our goodbyes? Where was his body? Whose ashes do we have? Questions no one should have to ask.
Then six months after he had passed, we finally were able to lay Grandad to rest. As a family we chose to watch our loved one enter the cremation furnace because Rob had destroyed all our trust and we couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him, once again, in the hands of someone else. Our family’s trust has forever been broken, we dread the day we lose another loved one, not just because of the grief we feel from the loss but from the fear of entrusting them with someone who has the potential to treat them as Rob treated Grandad. Our happy memories of Dave will forever be shadowed by the actions of Robert Bush and this is something we will never be able to forgive.
Rea Burton