Whose ashes have people got? It feels like we are all stuck in the middle of a horror movie
As police take away 35 bodies from scandal-hit funeral parlour, distraught relatives tell the Mail...
THE pavement outside the main branch of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull is covered in flowers. In the midst of the floral tributes, growing bigger by the day, is a small pink teddy bear with pink bows which has been here from the start, ever since police raided the premises last week and discovered a horror story behind the now shuttered-frontage.
In all 35 bodies that should have been sent for cremation weeks ago — including at least one body allegedly left to decompose — were removed from the building in Hessle Road by forensic officers in white boiler suits.
The unfolding drama in this corner of Hull is reminiscent of an episode from the BBC’s Silent Witness or the American series CSI.
Behind it, so many distressing repercussions for grieving families: some fear they have been given the wrong ashes after attending a service at Legacy’s Chapel of Rest . . . others have not received any ashes at all . . . one woman is convinced the coffin she kissed at her father’s
‘It was well known the firm was struggling’
funeral was empty . . . the uncertainty left another relative feeling ‘physically sick’.
There is even suspicion that the coffin for a much loved grandmother may have been ‘second-hand’.
It was ‘dented’ and the name plaque was not properly attached.
The ripple effect this is having on Hull is epitomised by the fact that more than 1,500 people whose loved ones were handled by Legacy have contacted a dedicated police hotline set up in the wake of the raid. And the pink teddy bear? There is no attached note or card to indicate if it was left in memory of a child or by a child for a departed family member.
Either way, it is surely the first time that flowers and tributes, now an all-too familiar sight at roadside and pavement shrines in towns and cities across Britain, have been left outside, and not inside, a High Street undertaker.
The removal of corpses followed a tip-off to Humberside Police which raised concerns about ‘ storage and management processes relating to care of the deceased’.
Critics argue the controversy is symptomatic of an industry which is unregulated in the UK and in urgent need of an overhaul.
Currently, there are at least two trade bodies with codes of practice, but membership is not compulsory and Legacy Independent Funeral Directors is not signed up to either.
Most firms are well run and offer a caring and compassionate service, but the lack of regulatory control can be easily exploited.
One way, we have been told, is by sending a body for cremation but dividing the ashes between two different sets of bereaved relatives, thus doubling the £300 profit a funeral business typically makes on each cremation.
Such a practice can result in the ‘stockpiling of bodies’ because only one corpse is being disposed of each time.
Crematoriums have only a certain amount of slots available on any given day.
So, if a funeral parlour, say, has six customers in a week requesting cremations of their loved ones, but only three are actually cremated, three “extra” bodies will have to be disposed of at a later date. To extrapolate the sequence further, over a ten-week period, the number of “extra” bodies rises to 30.
The average High Street undertaker will usually only have ‘three or four bodies’ in their own mortuary at any one time.
Legacy is run by married fatherof-two Robert Bush. Mr Bush, whose wife is a retired teacher, opened the funeral firm nearly 15 years ago and had three branches, two in Hull and the other in nearby Beverley. On the Legacy website, it describes him as a ‘ highly trained funeral director, with many years of experience, holding industry recognised qualifications,’ adding: ‘We pride ourselves on the quality of our service and the personal support we offer our clients.’ Funeral packages ranged from £970 to £4,999.
Mr Bush’s daughter Saskya, 23, a mechanical engineering graduate, helped run the business.
‘Each of you do an outstanding job, you should be proud of yourselves,’ reads one of several glowing testimonials online praising staff in earlier times.
The family live in a big detached house in the suburbs of Hull.
Father and daughter raced motorbikes in their spare time and are pictured in action at Brands Hatch and Snetterton on social media, where Saskya can also be seen soaking up the sun in Spain and Cape Verde and visiting Rome and Norway. ‘It was well known that Rob might be struggling a bit financially,’ said the director of another funeral firm. ‘ Suppliers and tradespeople talk when their bills aren’t being paid.’
Some customers complained about the standard of funerals when they popped into neighbouring shops.
‘A woman who came in recently was just livid about her grandad’s funeral,’ revealed one proprietor. ‘The car was late, the flowers were not fastened down properly to the coffin and were not the ones they had ordered. Then, afterwards, the spread they paid for at the funeral parlour was really poor, mainly tea and biscuits.’
It was not an isolated example. A daughter described a similar experience at her father’s funeral. ‘I wanted a bit more spent on the flowers but they were just fake ones spelling out Dad that had been lying around.’
Meanwhile, a mortuary fridge and hearses from Legacy, as well as other possessions, were up for sale on Facebook marketplace.
Legacy’s financial predicament is spelled out in accounts for Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, which are overdue.
Turnover has nearly halved from £142,555 in 2018 to £74,450 in 2022, with declared profits of £5,060 for the same year, the latest figures available. The firm, which does not have any fixed assets such as land or buildings, received its fifth public warning this month that it faces being struck off the Companies House register. All the branches have now closed.
The Hessle Road premises has a troubled history. A previous, entirely unconnected, funeral firm
The lack of regulation is easily exploited
based there, Heavenly Services — ironically named, as it turned out — was the subject of a fraud investigation following the sudden death of owner Simon Woolston in 2021, when the business went into liquidation and hundreds of customers who had paid for funeral plans were left out of pocket.
The revelations now emerging about the funeral industry represent a largely untold story and will shock many to the core.
Those wishing to pursue a career as an undertaker most commonly complete an apprenticeship with a funeral company but no formal education is required, though many undertakers have professional qualifications (such as a diploma in funeral arranging and administration or a foundation degree in funeral services).
Among the relatives who would come to deeply regret walking through the front door at Hessle Road is Leila Parker-Poland, 35.
Both her mother and father’s recent funerals were arranged through Legacy. Both were problematic. Ms Parker-Poland was initially told her mum’s ashes had been lost, then they were miraculously found and delivered to her home by a member of staff but weighed less than the ashes of her dad, who was smaller than her. At his own funeral a year earlier, he had also been left, she said, in a non-refrigerated viewing room for more than two weeks.
‘Whose ashes have people got?’ Ms Parker- Poland asked, a question that many relatives are asking. ‘There are a hundred things going through our minds. It is traumatising.’
Cassie Long’s father died in March last year following a long illness.
‘We paid for a horse and carriage and a dark oak coffin . . . with nice quality handles,’ Ms Long told the Yorkshire Live website. ‘Our dad went through so much at the end of his life and we thought he deserved a good quality service to pay our respects and honour.’
But while visiting the Chapel of Rest in Hessle Road she and her sisters noticed their dad was not in the coffin they had paid for.
They didn’t say anything, she said, because ‘ we were all exhausted and traumatised by the experience we’d just shared with our dad. We were in our most vulnerable state . . . we just wanted it all to be over and for him to be at peace.’
Michael Fogg, who has been an undertaker in Sheffield for 36 years, has publicly called for sweeping reform of his industry and a clear regulatory framework to prevent future abuses.
Some of those affected by the news in Hull have contacted him. One woman he spoke to said the police had told her that the ashes she had thought were her late mother’s final remains were in fact someone else’s.
‘This poor woman was utterly distraught,’ he said. ‘To lose your mother is hard enough, but to then be told you’ve been given the ashes of another deceased person is just horrendous.’
Mr Fogg told how he visited one funeral firm — a husband and wife team — who had set up in an industrial unit in his home city.
‘I was horrified by what I saw,’ he said. ‘They had two corpses laid out on stretchers in the middle of the unit and there was no outside ventilation.’
He added: ‘Until there is a regulatory body working to a regulatory framework, we’ll never have peace of mind.’
An online petition — ‘Stop Funeral Directors Exploiting Grieving Families’ — started by
‘We trusted them to care for my dad’
Jodie Langsford, from Birmingham, has now been signed by more than 60,000 people.
‘On the 23rd of April, my life changed forever when I lost my dad,’ the introduction reads. ‘As a family, we trusted a funeral director with the honour of caring for my dad.
‘But instead of looking after him, they left his body to decompose, failing to provide even the most basic care. I didn’t even get to say my final goodbye.’
In the wake of the most recent allegations, Jodie, 34, said: ‘My heart goes out to everyone in Hull and everyone who’s experienced this.’
The 35 bodies removed from the Hessle road branch are now undergoing identification at a local authority mortuary.
Today, many relatives will be anxiously waiting to find out whether the precious ashes they were given really were the final remains of a loved one.
Yesterday, police said they believed they had contacted all families of the 35 deceased.
‘It feels like I’m in the middle of a horror movie,’ said one relative.
Albeit one that can’t be switched off.