ShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleLinsey SmithNews correspondent, BBC East Yorkshire and LincolnshireBBCPatrick Moore went to Humberside Police about Robert Bush"I think he was living beyond his means," says Patrick Moore about disgraced undertaker Robert Bush.
Moore is trying to explain why his former boss hoarded 30 bodies and half a tonne of human ashes at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.
A judge at the city's crown court earlier told Bush he is going to prison for preventing the burials of 30 people and giving grieving families the wrong ashes.
He also fraudulently sold funeral plans and stole from 12 charities, including the Salvation Army and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Moore, 65, says he was a "general dogsbody" at Legacy.
And he insists he did not know Bush had kept 30 bodies after their families had held funeral services. He says he knew of only three deceased people on the premises.
But the father-of-two says it became clear to him that "there was something wrong" in Bush's business affairs.
"Every time the phone rang, Rob was real jumpy… but I knew that was because he'd been getting phone calls and threats to be cut off from his electric.
"He'd put his laptop in one of these places [a pawnbroker] for a couple of days to get some money.
"Anything that he could sell, he'd sell it."
Although his Facebook account has since been deleted, posts showed Bush was selling a hearse, cars and even trying to give away a mortuary fridge that, according to the advert, "ran cool not cold".
A county court hearing in May 2024 highlighted Bush had debts amounting to almost £55,000, including to local councils for unpaid cremation and burial fees.
According to Moore, Bush had been making his own coffins to save money – on occasion staying up all night at the firm's Hessle Road parlour.
He advertised these on social media as being "handcrafted" and "special".
Several local funeral businesses have told the BBC they would not supply Legacy with coffins, for fear they would not be paid.
Kevin Moxon, a former police officer who opened a funeral home in Hull six months before the investigation, claims he was warned about Bush.
"Other people within the funeral profession have said, 'don't get involved with him, don't lend cars, don't supply coffins'.
"The rumour was that you wouldn't get paid."
Bush oversaw about 2,000 funerals during his career. He began by working for other undertakers before setting up his own business.
So what happened to the money, paid by bereaved families?
He invested in racing bikes and splashed out on expensive track days, often posting videos of his lap times on social media.
His family home was in an exclusive street where property values reach half a million pounds.
Despite his debts, Bush flew to Los Angeles in March 2024 to watch motorcycle racing.
"Rob was in America and I was looking after things for about four days," says Moore.
"He said if anybody comes just don't answer the door. Simple as that, that was what I got.
Bush's crimes may never have come to light, but for what happened when he was in America.
Moore says he used a stretcher, borrowed from another funeral service, to collect a body from a local nursing home.
Two men, who came to retrieve the stretcher, saw inside Legacy's premises.
Moore recalls: "While I was talking to one of them, the other one went in the fridge.
"They had seen it shouldn't be like this."
One of the men rang the police. Shortly afterwards, Moore went to the station.
The father-of-two says he had previously challenged Bush about practices at Legacy.
"Just the state of everything and I could see, when I was working with Rob, I could see there's something wrong here."
But Moore says his boss "always had an answer for everything".
Moore's account was integral to the investigation – one of the most intricate in Humberside Police's history.
Thirty-five bodies and half a tonne of human ashes were discovered at Legacy's premises by officers in March 2024.
In contrast to the air of respectability which greeted grieving families, Moore says the rear of Legacy's premises was like "something out of a horror movie".
Thirty-one of the remains discovered by police were those of loved ones whose families had already held funerals.
Those families had been told by Bush their relatives had been cremated.
More than 100 families had been presented with the ashes of strangers.
One of those families was that of baby Sunny Beverley-Conlin, who was born prematurely in May 2022. They held a funeral and were given ashes.
In March 2024, police found their son's body, still at the funeral home, and the family were told the ashes were not Sunny's.
Moore insists he had never seen Bush mixing up ashes.
"If I had have known, I would have been [to the police] a lot earlier," he says.
Bush was the only person charged in relation to the Legacy investigation.
One victim's family says Bush operated behind a veneer of respectability.
"He genuinely seemed like a lovely guy. He seemed sad for us. Sympathetic.
Emma Hardy MP, who represents many of the victims in the constituency of Hull West and Haltemprice, describes Bush as a "complete conman" who "made out that he cared".
"Anyone who treats people in that way is utterly without compassion," she adds. "He's a completely selfish individual who was thinking about his business, his money [while] disregarding human life."
Hardy says she does not accept the excuse that Bush was struggling financially, pointing out that he had a "large house" and enough money for holidays "while knowing all the time he was enjoying himself that he had left 35 human bodies in his funeral parlour".
The Legacy case has led to calls for the funeral industry to be regulated. Currently, it is not.
According to Hardy, there are more checks and regulations to set up a sandwich shop.
"You can set up tomorrow as a funeral director. Pop your name on the front of the shop and off you go. And nobody comes to look at anything."
Bush, formerly of East Yorkshire and now living in West Yorkshire, was granted conditional bail until he is sentenced on 27 July.
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