Hull funeral director: "Were my baby's remains disposed of like a piece of litter?"

The mother of an unborn baby whose remains were left on the floor of a funeral parlour for nearly two years addressed a funeral director in court to tell him how she had trusted him "with the most precious and important person in her life."

Jasmine Beverley said they'd chosen Robert Bush to care for Sunny, who was just 18 weeks old, when he born without a heartbeat, as her husband had worked at the crematorium and spoken highly of him.

Bush, 47, formerly of Kirk Ella, is being sentenced for 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims.

Ms Beverley said she'd been "forced to live the trauma again and again" after Sunny’s remains were found in a paper bag in the storeroom where 30 other bodies lay on racks, months after they should have been cremated or buried.

The ashes purporting to be those of Sunny were handed to the couple inside an envelope, in a small coffin, following a small funeral at the Legacy premises on Hessle Road in Hull on June 17 2022.

However a police officer found what he initially thought was a baby bird in a brown paper bag after being called to the scene on the evening of March 8 2024.

There were still two hospital wristbands wrapped round his waist.

Ms Beverley said losing Sunny had been the most devastating experience of her life, and she felt "lost in a darkness".

Turning to talk directly to Bush, she said: "Your actions have taken away something that never can be replaced, the peace of believing our loved ones were treated with care and respect after death.

"The reality I now live with is that my baby boy Sunny has spent more time in your possession than he ever did with his own family.

"I have to live with the fact that my son was kept for so long without my knowledge, and that when he was eventually found he was in brown paper bag on the floor.

"As a mother, that is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life."

When Katie Woolston suffered a second miscarriage at seven weeks in May 2023 she went to Legacy for her unborn baby’s remains to be cremated, as she had with her first.

She contacted Bush to have the ashes collected from the hospital, but he didn’t collect them.

The hospital then rang to ask her if she still wanted them collected.

As the weeks went past she began to feel fobbed off.

When they were finally allowed to collect them it wasn’t in an urn as promised by Bush but a small box.

However it was then confirmed following the police investigation that the ashes could not have been those of her baby, as Bush had not collected them until later the following day.

Although she said they were described scientifically as a foetus “from the moment I saw two pink lines, they are and will always be, my baby because they were my hope and dream to become a mummy”.

She told the court: “I often wonder where my baby's remains are, if they ever made it back to the Legacy funeral home, or if they were simply disposed of like a piece of litter, and those thoughts break my heart.”

Stacey Foster decided to use Legacy for her son Tommy, born lifeless at 17 weeks, because Bush had handled the funeral arrangements for her father.

Over a month later, and again having felt fobbed off, they were able to collect what they thought were his ashes. However when they weighed them they found they were twice what Tommy weighed. During the police investigation ashes were recovered from the funeral parlour with Tommy’s name on them. She told the court that being “treated in such a way by Robert Bush is beyond words.

"You can’t even imagine it happening to somebody else, let alone yourself.”

Lucy James-Guest contacted the police after an appeal, as she was concerned that the ashes of her unborn baby, born on April 20 2021, had been mishandled. Officers found an empty bag, with her baby’s name on it.

An urn she and her partner were given turned out to contain pieces of bone – not of a foetus - and wadding. She said what Bush had done was “the lowest of the low.”