Relatives fear they have the ‘wrong ashes’ after arrests at funeral home
A PoLICe probe into a funeral firm has triggered fears that families may have been given the wrong ashes for their loved ones.
relatives who hired Legacy Independent Funeral Directors have been kept in the dark about details of the growing investigation that has involved the removal of 34 bodies.
But a number have expressed concerns that the ashes they were given following cremation could have been from a different body. At least one person is said to have made an item of jewellery using the ashes of a loved one and is now questioning the validity of the remains.
A woman, who asked not to be named, said she was suffering from ‘panic attacks’, ‘depression’ and was ‘not coping’ out of worry about how her partner’s body and remains were dealt with and whether the ashes in a glass bottle in her home were really from
‘So many questions’
him. She said her partner, who was in his mid-60s, was suffering from pneumonia and cancer when he died in December 2021.
She saw his body when it was at the Hessle branch of Hull-based Legacy but was concerned about marks on his face and neck.
A cremation took place in early January but she said ‘it took them ages for the ashes to be given to me’. She added: ‘I have still got some of the ashes in a glass bottle and my daughter has got some, but my big worry is that it could be the wrong ashes.’
Police have said nothing to suggest there is evidence she received the wrong ashes, but she said ‘there is so much speculation on social media that you just don’t know what to think’.
The firm is run by owner robert Bush, a married father-of-two, and his daughter Saskya, an engineering graduate. The family live in a Hull suburb and a neighbour said: ‘I can’t think of anyone who would have a bad word to say about
them.’ Humberside Police said officers have removed 34 bodies from the firm’s premises on Hessle road, Hull, and taken them to a mortuary for ‘formal identification procedures to take place’.
Another grieving daughter, Leila Parker-Poland, recalled how she went to the Legacy building and was initially told her mother’s ashes couldn’t be found.
ms Parker-Poland said they were brought to her house that night and she even joked about it ‘not being her ashes’. Legacy also dealt with her father’s earlier
death, and she said she now has ‘so many questions in my head’.
She said she knew of another woman with ‘a box of ashes from Legacy’ who phoned the crematorium and was told ‘no one of that name was cremated’ on the dates given. ‘So she is sat with ashes that were not her dad’s,’ speculated ms Parker-Poland.
emma osborne told the Telegraph she had been informed that her stepfather Danny middleton may be one of the 34 bodies, despite relatives being supposedly given his ashes a month ago. The funeral
service took place in the Legacy branch and she said his body ‘has just been found in the morgue’.
Legacy’s finances are also under scrutiny, with accounts overdue and the firm receiving its fifth ‘compulsory strike off’ warning in two years. But it was trading normally before police swooped on its three branches last Thursday.
A 46-year- old man and a 23year- old woman have been arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position.