Audrey Leach’s distraught family say an apology from Robert Bush isn’t enough
Audrey Leach
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.
Robert Bush betrayed me and my family. When my grandma, Audrey Leach, passed away on November 4th 2023 we put our faith and trust in Rob and Legacy, as professionals, to sort everything out for us.
We paid him our hard-earned money to treat my grandma with respect and all he did was pull the rug. I have little trust in others now, if Rob can do this to so many people then anyone can do it, professional or not.
He caused us to have to relive the trauma we’d already lived through. We’d planned a funeral, spoken to the coroners, arranged a death certificate and had to find the money to pay for it all. Then to have to go through it all again was horrific.
The second time around was a great deal easier, mainly because it was done properly and we saw how our grandma should have been treated from the start. I keep thinking, what if the initial cremation had gone ahead? We would never know if we were getting a person back or if we’d been conned with a handful of gravel.
I know that we’re lucky that we know exactly where grandma was and exactly where she is now, others don’t have that privilege and will never know. Our family had had no dealings with the police prior to this, when they knocked on our door at teatime on Friday 8th March 2024 and frightened my family.
The children had to abandon their meal and go upstairs, we were terrified and didn’t know what we had done wrong. Then we were asked if we had used Legacy for grandma’s funeral and it all became clear.
None of us slept that night. I don’t think we slept properly again until we knew that grandma had been cremated for sure and we had her back home with us. At first Rob Bush was fine. He came across as caring and professional but now I have not one nice word to say about him.
As a family, we wish that someone would do to him what he’s done to so many others. We wish for retribution, for him to get what’s coming to him
There are so many things I could say, so many things I wish for but I know that this statement is not the place for me to raise them. As a family, an apology from Rob Bush will not be good enough for us. Even if he grovelled to us on his knees it wouldn’t be enough.
I want to hear him explain himself, explain why he’s done this to us and to so many others. I don’t want him to plead guilty and take that opportunity away from us; we need to know what he has thinking, we need to know why.
Amy Leach