Jean Collinson’s husband had to go through the heartache of two funerals for his beloved wife
Jean Collinson
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.
I am the husband of Jean Collinson. When Jean died she was collected from Hull Royal Infirmary and taken to Legacy Funeral Directors on Hessle Road, Hull.
From there I made arrangements for Jean to have a cremation and for me to be able to visit Jean at the Legacy premises before this happened. Four times I had to ring to make this happen as Robert Bush who I spoke to kept putting me off. I expected that once Jean was in Legacy she was going to be treat with respect and that the arrangement I made for her cremation was all going to go through as it should have. What actually happened was that Rob rang me up to tell me what date the cremation was going to take place which was early on in the December. I expected that this would go through as planned.
The first I knew of this having not happened was me getting a phone call from the police in March 2024 to tell me that a coffin had been found in the Hessle Road Legacy premises and it had Jean’s name on it. My wife Jean was taken to the Hull Royal Infirmary Mortuary where she was subsequently identified. In order for this to happen I was asked to provide a very detailed and personal description of Jean and of the clothing and items of jewellery and personal possessions that she’d had with her when she was taken to Legacy. I felt physically sick that I had to do that. I felt sick that Jean had not been cremated as I thought she had and that I had in my possession a box of ashes that I thought were Jean’s but that actually weren’t.
The ashes had Jean’s name on them but obviously they weren’t Jean’s as Jean had been identified by the police through their investigation. How those ashes ever came to have Jean’s name on them I have no idea, but I felt physically ill for months when I was informed of this.
I felt traumatised when I handed those ashes to the police as I had looked after them all that time and some family of the person whose ashes they actually were didn’t have them. I was disgusted to be honest. I felt upset for the family who didn’t have the ashes of their loved one as I was told those ashes could never be identified and given to their rightful family, so they’ll never have them.
I didn’t know how to take the thought of having a second funeral for Jean at first. I knew that this time she would be treat with the respect that she should have had in the first place, and we had all the family there to make sure she got the ceremony that she should have had in the first place.
When I was at the second funeral I found myself thinking back to how I had felt when I was at the first funeral, when I thought Jean had got everything for her ceremony that time. It just brought everything back and started stirring up emotions I thought I had dealt with and started moving on from. It shouldn’t have had to happen.
I can’t begin to think what sort of frame of mind someone would have to be in to even start to think about doing something like that. You would think that a funeral directors would be one place or one person that you can trust.
The fact that Legacy took my money that I paid in good faith for Jean’s funeral was plain robbery and deceit as clearly none of it was used to honour the plan I had put in place and paid for for Jean’s funeral. On top of that I couldn’t even comprehend what the other people were going through.
I knew it wasn’t just me with Jean and that there were others too. It made me think about what the others were going through and I felt the effect of the scale of what had happened hit me more as time went on.
Michael Eugene Collinson