Hospital bosses are trying to stop an inquest being held into the death of bar owner Hubert (Hubie) Brown.

Mr Brown, who ran Hubie’s bar and jazz club on Angle Street, died aged 66 in December 2002 at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Senior Coroner Archibald Warner ordered an inquest into his death this year, following a lengthy police investigation.

But publicly-funded Bermuda Hospitals Board has issued a writ seeking a judicial review of his decision, questioning whether the Coroner has the power to hold such a hearing.

The writ is being contested by the Coroner, through the Attorney General’s Chambers, and the matter will be decided by the Supreme Court.

Mr Warner told The Royal Gazette: “We have got a situation ... where I have ordered an inquest into a death and the Bermuda Hospitals Board, through their lawyers, are resisting it. They say, for some reason, they don’t want an inquest held. It’s not for me to say why.

“This is why I can speak on it, because they have taken out a writ of judicial review, against me, against the coroners.”

The Senior Coroner is notified of all sudden or unnatural deaths and, under the Coroner’s Act 1938, must hold inquests where a person dies in police custody, in prison, in a senior training school or in a mental hospital.

BHB is claiming that the Coroner does not have the power to hold inquests in any other circumstances but Mr Warner said if that was the case “we would have wasted a lot of time since 1938”.

The Senior Coroner insisted that under the Act he had the power to hold inquests in other cases, though he rarely does so.

Regarding Mr Brown, he said: “He died at KEMH and they are saying, the only ground [for their claim] is, that ‘listen you haven’t got any right to investigate into unnatural deaths in Bermuda. The only unnatural deaths you can hold an inquest into are those four statutory situations’.

“They have said that. It [the Act] doesn’t say that. I have to do it in those cases and it provides for inquests in other cases.”

He added: “They have gone to the Supreme Court. I abide by the direction of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will determine it.”

He said he ordered the inquest to be held before Coroner Nicole Stoneham last week but it was stayed on an order from the Supreme Court.

Mr Warner did not share the circumstances of Mr Brown’s death, other than to say: “The evidence indicate[d] that he died in hospital care and I understand that there was a settlement between the hospital and the deceased’s estate.

“I don’t know and I’m not interested in the terms of that settlement. But in the circumstances that were reported to me, I deem it necessary for an inquest, after a long investigation.”

Asked why the police inquiry took so long, he said: “I’m not going to give an explanation as to why it takes [so] long but you’ve got to realise that very often these investigations are long.

“Staff in particular, from the doctors who did the post-mortem through to doctors who work at the various institutions, are difficult to track down, they have [often] left the Island.

“The coroner hasn’t got an independent investigation arm. We’ve got to wait on the police. Very often the police have got internal problems with their investigation because they are busy ... or very often, it is not on the top of their priority list, in terms of investigation, and that ties in with them being busy. So it takes time.”

The last such hearing into a death at KEMH was in 2009, in the case of Norman Palmer, whose family was dissatisfied with the care he received.

Trott and Duncan law firm is representing BHB in the case involving Mr Brown’s death.

A BHB spokeswoman told this newspaper: “This tragic case is 11 years old and was already dealt with some time ago. BHB is questioning whether the Coroner has the lawful authority to hold such an inquiry and compel witnesses to appear before it.”

A December 2002 editorial in this newspaper described Mr Brown, of Devonshire, as someone who “without pretension or publicity ... provided some of the glue that keeps a small and diverse community together”.