Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

The court room here has been full for most of the day but a few people have started leaving now.

Some will have read their statements and undoubtedly others have been finding it very difficult to sit and listen to everything which has been read out today.

We've heard the situation described as "gruesome", "shocking" and "like something from a horror scene".

At times it has been too much for some people here, there have been several who have been obviously distressed throughout the hours we have sat in court.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

The judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, starts talking to the court again. He's trying to work out what went on at the Legacy funeral home.

We've been told a lot of figures about how much people have paid Bush. The judge is trying to calculate what that money was spent on.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Katie Minns, the maternal granddaughter of victim Danny Middleton, has read a statement on behalf of Danny's son, Gavin Middleton.

She says Gavin died after making his statement and was never able to see Robert Bush in court.

Gavin chose a service using the Legacy chapel and paid Bush to have his father's body collected from the hospital.

He says in his statement the coffin was "really small" and he wondered how his father could fit in it.

They had a collection plate for a dog sanctuary but his family never received an acknowledgement from the charity that they received any money.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Image source, Handout

Beverly Jackson, whose partner Peter Moody was one of Bush's victims, is now speaking to the court.

Jackson sounds calm and controlled as she speaks about her love for her husband, who was a family man and how she feels she has failed him.

She says "there is no peace" for her now, but she is managing to speak in a quiet voice while she addresses the court.

She adds the theft of a charity donation, intended for a fishing heritage museum in Hull, was the final insult.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Image source, Handout

Tristan Essex, the grandson of victim Jessie Stockdale, says he went to view his grandmother several times at Legacy's Hessle Road premises.

He says he noticed a dark coloured liquid on the frill around the edge of her coffin and mould on it.

He believed they were changing bodies into different coffins.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Jade Munro took a deep breath before she started reading her statement.

She quickly becomes upset as she starts speaking. Bush appears to look down when she mentions him by name in her statement several times.

"We've been to hell and back," the daughter tells the court.

Eleanor Maslin
BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Image source, Handout

Jade Munro tells the court she has felt "nothing but distress, mental torture, heartache and pain" since she was told the body of her father, Tony Munro, was still at Legacy.

She says: "I have had to take time off work because I just couldn't deal with the thought of dad just being left and forgotten.

"I have had to have counselling just to start to come to terms with it.

"I always thought that I could trust a funeral director."

Munro adds that she has "lost faith in the whole funeral business".

She tells the court: "It angers me that there are no regulations in the funeral business.

"It is clear that such a lucrative business should have checks and balances and I just don't understand why there isn't and this situation is allowed to happen."

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Lots of people have mentioned in court that Bush would say "bless you" or "god bless" when he spoke to bereaved families and quite a few have said in their statements that they can't bear to hear the words any more.

They have said that just hearing people use those words brings back the trauma they have gone through and the memories they are still haunted by.

Legacy funeral directors were used by many people in the Hessle Road area of Hull.

Several people have spoken in court about how hard they've found it having to continue to see the building since they found out what happened to their loved ones there.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Amy Leach, the granddaughter of victim Audrey Leach, says her family had to wait to receive life insurance before they could pay Bush.

She says ashes were handed to her family in a black Legacy gift bag, and that Bush said remnants of photos cremated with her grandmother were in the bag too.

The family later found out from police their grandmother's ashes weren't in the bag they received.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Amy Leach is the first person this afternoon to give her statement in person.

She is very upset as she stands up to talk.

Her grandmother, Audrey Leach, died in November 2023 and the family paid Legacy for a cremation and funeral.

She says: "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."

As she speaks about the huge impact on her whole family, she seems to be looking to the back of the court where Bush is sitting.

She says: "We wish someone would do to him what he's done to us."

Leach adds: "Even if he grovelled on his knees, it wouldn't be good enough."

Sarah-May Buccieri
Reporting from Hull

Natalie Smith's grandfather was one of the bodies found at Legacy.

He had been there for 11 months and was 95 when he died, with a funeral held for him before they found out his body was still at the site.

Natalie says: "At first I think I thought it was a little bit of a joke.

"Within an hour of my mum calling police, they turned up and gave her the news that they believed he was one of the 30 that had been found."

The family had been given ashes, which they had been put into lockets, but they turned out to not be the ashes of Smith's grandfather.

Smith said seeing Bush today felt like "a little bit of justice to have him among us, to not just escape through a back door".

She adds: "Robert Bush got to just hide everything and lie, and got to get away with it for so long."

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Sarah Gray, the daughter of victim Terence Buck, is now having her statement read out by a lawyer.

She says she returned the ashes she had been given back to police as she couldn't bear to have them in her own home anymore

The ashes she believed were her father's had been kept in her bedroom.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

We've been hearing from friends and family of Legacy victims for several hours now and some things have been mentioned repeatedly.

One is the guilt that family members have over choosing to use Legacy, another is the huge impact on people's mental health.

Another topic which keeps coming up is that people lied to by Bush have struggled to trust people since they found out what had happened.

Families have had to go through a second funeral and several have said that they found themselves questioning whether that funeral was legitimate.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

Banyard's victim impact statement mentions Bush several times.

Bush “had been seen as a pinnacle of the community,” Banyard says.

“The fraud and deception that was perpetrated by Mr Bush has had a profound impact on my mental health,” Banyard adds.

Bush continues to stare ahead although he blinks rapidly several times, as if he is listening and taking things in.

Bayard says he is “now at the stage where I would like to sit and have a civil conversation with Bush to ask him why… To see if there were any mitigating circumstances.”

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

A lawyer is reading out the statement of John Banyard - a friend of victim John Carlill.

Banyard went to see Carlill at Legacy's premises but was told by Robert Bush his friend "didn't look good" so the lid of the casket was kept down.

The friend only told his family Carlill was involved in a Legacy case a few weeks ago.

He describes Bush as the "lowest of the low".

"If you can’t trust a funeral undertaker, who can you trust? How can someone be so callous, cold and calculated?"

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

The court has heard impact statements from numerous victims of Robert Bush now.

Some statements have been read out by lawyers representing the families and others by relatives themselves. Many have spoken about how they are still haunted by what Bush did.

They have spoken of having nightmares and the ongoing impact on their mental health.

They have also pointed out that they had to go through two funerals for their loved ones, when one is hard enough.

Jessica Lane
Reporting from Hull Crown Court

An announcement has been made that we can go back into court now so everyone is gathering outside again.

Lots of people came out in the break sighing and grimacing at each other.

Even lawyers and journalists who have to listen to awful things regularly are acknowledging this is all difficult to listen to.

Eleanor Maslin
BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

As a reminder, we've been hearing victim impact statements from the families affected by Robert Bush's crimes at Hull Crown Court.

Debbie Keeting told the court she was the "devoted carer" of Mark Hotham and although not related through blood, saw him as her grandfather.

She says: "No words can express how it feels to find out that someone you love so deeply was treated this way after death.

"I feel a terrible sense of guilt, as though I failed him-despite doing everything I could to honour his wishes."

She says she had cared for the ashes she was given - which turned out to not be Mark's.

"I would talk to them and even set them at the Christmas dinner table with a cracker hat on them.

"I felt like he was still with me and it kept me going.

"All the time my grandad was rotting in that place. It just makes me feel sick."

Eleanor Maslin
BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Image source, Handout

Nigel Hotham told the court he had used Legacy for his 87-year-old uncle's funeral when he died in September 2023.

He says his world "fell apart" and he "felt sick" when he found out his uncle, Mark Hotham, was believed to be one of the bodies at Legacy.

"Mark had been abused as a child when he was evacuated during wartime which had resulted in his deafness.

"Now it felt he was being abused again at the end of his life."

He adds: "I am so angry that such a sweet man could be just left.

"I can't forgive him and don't think I ever will. One mistake is perhaps forgivable but to mistreat so many people is a huge betrayal."

Eleanor Maslin
BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Image source, Handout

Before the court took a short break, we heard a statement from Jayne Rimmington.

As explained earlier, she had used Legacy after the death of her mother, Shirley Wright, but later found out that another deceased person's property had been placed with her when her body was recovered.

"So many thoughts ran around my head," she told the court.

She said: "I was told that a photograph of dogs was recovered with mum.  

"This both shocked and upset me. Mum didn't have any dogs, she didn't even like them and we had not left any photographs with her."

She said she feels "so much guilt for choosing Robert Bush and Legacy".

"You should be able to trust a funeral director. We did.  

"Now I have questions of doubt about all funeral directors. I hope that there are regulations that come from all of this."