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Funeral director who admitted hoarding bodies is ‘sorry’, his lawyers tell judge

Shamed funeral director Robert Bush has offered an apology “without qualification” to the families left devastated by his mistreatment of their deceased loved ones, a court heard.Following two days of emotional testimony from his victims, Bush’s lawyers began to give his version of events for the first time on Wednesday, telling a judge: “He has expressed himself to the court, and through the court to the families, as being sorry.”Richard Wright KC, defending, addressed the court after prosecutors said Bush should face between 20 and 25 years in prison for multiple charges of preventing lawful burials, fraud and theft.Mr Wright said: “Nothing I can say is intended to dull their (the families) pain, anger or the sense of betrayal.”He told the court: “Over the course of the last two-and-a-half days the court, and through the unprecedented global media coverage, the world, has listened quietly as victim after victim after victim of Robert Bush has either come forward to read their own victim personal statements or has had their statements read on their behalf.“He has heard witness after witness castigate his character and heard their entirely understandable anger, pain and outrage, all directed at him. And, all rightly directed at him.”The barrister said his client’s offending has caused pain, anguish and upset “on a scale that it’s difficult to comprehend.”Mr Wright said Bush has written to the court to apologise and “he offers that apology without qualification and he accepts that responsibility.”The 48-year-old is to be sentenced for 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims at his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.A court has heard that he breached the trust placed in him by grieving families “on an almost industrial scale”, by keeping bodies for months after they should have been cremated, giving out the wrong ashes, taking money for funeral plans without making any of the arrangements, and stealing charity donations continue reading...