An ex-employee described Robert Bush's funeral parlour as a "horror scene", prosecutor Chris Paxton said at the start of a five-day sentencing hearing.Police who searched his premises after a tip-off found 31 bodies in a cold storage area that should have been cremated months earlier, including a stillborn baby that had been there for almost two years.They also found more than 100 sets of ashes."There were bodies stored on the racks on both sides of the room," the lawyer said at Hull Crown Court in northeast England."The vast majority were uncovered and in varying states of decomposition," he added.The 48-year-old undertaker previously pleaded guilty to 67 offences spanning 12 years and affecting hundreds of victims.'A shock'In his first police interview, Bush said he had developed a cash-flow problem because "people did not always pay," and he had debts of about £90,000.He said he struggled with maintaining the payments due for leases, and believed there were about 30 bodies at one site, with five to six of them "recent" and waiting to be cremated.But the prosecutor dismissed financial problems as an explanation for what had gone on.Over £3 million ($3.9 million) was paid into the business between March 2017 and April 2024 with a single cremation costing £500 to carry out, Paxton said."Mr Bush chose not to deal with those bodies entrusted to him but to operate as he chose and spend the money on himself and others," he said, adding that Bush had indulged in "profligate personal spending".Bush, who is on bail, arrived at court with his face covered with a baseball cap and scarf. Jasmine Beverley, whose son Sunny was stillborn in May 2022, said Bush appeared "lovely" and presented himself as "very respectful"."It was a shock to learn what had actually been going on behind the closed doors," she told BBC radio, adding Sunny's remains were found in a brown envelope on the floor even though she believed he had been cremated."I discovered that he was still in there almost two years after we'd had the funeral," she said, describing the discovery as "distressing".'Industrial scale'Beverley, her husband and other families are campaigning for changes to funeral parlour regulations, backed by a number of lawmakers.Undertakers in England and Wales can operate without a licence, with anybody free to set themselves up as a funeral director.A statutory Funeral Director Code of Practice was introduced in Scotland in March last March.