Fraudulent funeral director Robert Bush pocketed cash donated by grieving families to a host of well-known charities including Macmillan Cancer Support and RNLI, a court has been told.

Hull Crown Court was told about the thefts at the beginning of the third day of the sentencing hearing for Bush, 48, who has admitted 67 offences relating to his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors.

A judge has heard that Bush kept 31 bodies, including an stillborn baby in a paper bag, at his Hull funeral home while telling their families they had been cremated and giving them the ashes of a stranger.

He also sold false funeral plans worth more than £500,000 in total, covering more than 200 people, prosecutors have said.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Steven Ball told the court: “The police were contacted by members of the public who expressed concerns that charitable donations that were donated at Legacy following funeral services were not paid to their chosen charities as requested.

“Mr Bush has stolen money from funeral services for 12 separate named charities.”

Mr Ball said the charities included the Salvation Army, Macmillan Cancer Support, Help for Heroes, the RNLI and some local groups.

Mary Jane Roberts collected between £300 and £600 for Macmillan at the funeral of her mother Lynne Wheal, who died from cancer in 2022.

The court heard that Bush told her: “We’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

Ms Roberts remembered thinking “how nice he was for giving them one less thing to worry about”, but Macmillan never received the donation.

When police raided Legacy, they found an empty envelope labelled “Donations in memory of Matthew Craig. Thank you”.

The court heard that Mr Craig died in September 2023, and the envelope should have contained donations for Dove House Hospice, collected by his mother Jayne Waudby.

In emotional scenes over two days earlier this week, more than 80 people either faced Bush to tell the stories of how he devastated their lives, or had their statements read in court by prosecutors.

Many broke down in tears as they described Bush’s “callous” disregard for relatives they had entrusted to him.

Bush sat in the glass-fronted dock, wearing a dark suit as he listened to the prosecution case against him continue on Wednesday morning.

The judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, has heard that, over 12 years, he breached the trust placed in him by grieving families “on an almost industrial scale”.

Police were called to Legacy’s Hessle Road premises in March 2024 after concerns were raised, and officers found 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes.

Among the remains was the body of a stillborn baby, Sunny, in a bag on the floor.

Sunny’s mother Jasmine Beverley sobbed on Tuesday as she told Bush: “I trusted you with the most precious person in my life.”

In April, Bush pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial, and theft from the 12 charities.

He had already admitted 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to bodies found at the site, and four “foetus allegations” of fraud, where he presented ashes to women falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”.

Bush also pleaded guilty to a further charge of fraud, covering the ashes of 57 people between 2017 and 2024, and one of fraudulent trading relating to funeral plans between 2012 and 2024.