Brady Hubbard may have been thrown from the back of ute and fatally injured, inquest hears
Brady James Hubbard was 21 when he died on June 28, 2023, about four days after he was injured.
He played football for the West Ulverstone Lions football club on June 24, but an inquest into his death in the Devonport Magistrates Court has heard several stories about how he was injured.
Several witnesses have told the court three club members — Andrew Hilfenhaus, his son Cameron Hilfenhaus, and club trainer Anthony Sharman — lied to others at the club and "covered up" how Mr Hubbard was injured.
Those three men have now given evidence in the inquest into Mr Hubbard's death which is being held at the Devonport Magistrates Court before Coroner Leigh Mackey.
The court has heard from multiple witnesses that Mr Hubbard and many other club members were drinking and socialising during the afternoon and evening of June 24, after a football game against Wesley Vale.
The court heard Mr Hubbard had joined the two Hilfenhaus men when they left the football club in the evening to collect a pool cue from Andrew's nearby home.
Multiple witnesses have said Mr Hubbard was "not himself" when he returned to the club, and that he was not sociable, and sat down at a table while cradling his head.
None of the witnesses knew what caused the change in his demeanour, though some said they were told he had slipped and hit his head, while others heard he hit his head while wrestling with a clubmate.
The court heard suggestions he may have been injured during the day's football game, or that he might have got into a fight at Burnie's Greens Hotel.
But on Thursday, Cameron Hilfenhaus told the court Mr Hubbard fell off the back of Andrew Hilfenhaus's ute while they were driving back toward the clubhouse.
The Hilfenhaus men told the court Mr Hubbard and Cameron were standing on the back step of the ute, on either side of the tow ball, and that Andrew was driving.
However, they gave differing stories about when and how Mr Hubbard came off the back of the ute.
Andrew told the court his son and Mr Hubbard stepped off the back of the ute, and that he then did a burnout to "spray them with mud" from the oval.
Cameron said he was still on the ute when his father did the burnout, but that Mr Hubbard no longer was.
He said Mr Hubbard may have fallen off the ute, but if he did, it was before the burnout.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Anna Hogan, suggested to both men Mr Hubbard was injured after being thrown from the ute during the "fishtail", which they both denied.
Cameron agreed with Ms Hogan that as he was on the back of the ute with Mr Hubbard, he was best placed to know what happened, but denied her version of events.
Both men agreed that whatever happened, Mr Hubbard was then on the ground and in need of medical assistance, so Cameron alerted trainer Anthony Sharman, who had first aid training.
Mr Sharman told the court he believed Mr Hubbard needed an ambulance, but that the young player denied needing to be hospitalised, so triple-0 was not called.
He said he blamed himself for Mr Brady's death.
He also told the court Andrew had changed his version of the story in the two years since Mr Hubbard's death.
Cameron agreed he had told different stories about what happened to other people at the club, but could not explain why.
Andrew said he was also concerned about being charged by police in relation to the incident, but that he would admit it, if he was to blame.
He denied attempting to shift blame by lying about how Mr Hubbard may have been injured, or starting rumours about his mental health.
"If I'd done the wrong thing … I'd be happy to go to jail," he said.
The inquest is expected to end today, with findings to be delivered at a later date.
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Fifteen years later, the mention of Normy around Goondiwindi reminds people of a crime that has left a permanent stain on the farming community, and derailed lives and businesses. This week John Norman was sentenced to at least three years behind bars, and now the public will finally learn the story of how he masterminded one of the most significant water frauds in Australian history. Farming was in Normy's blood — before he took the reins, it was his dad Arthur at the helm of the family farm. In the early 1980s, the Normans started buying up property and developing the land around the tiny town of Toobeah, a 30-minute drive west of Goondiwindi, in southern Queensland. This country, taken from the Bigambul and Gomeroi people, had been largely used as grazing land after colonisation. But entrepreneurs like Arthur Norman began transforming this Macintyre River flood plain into high-value grain and cotton farmland. Around this time, locals say Arthur Norman was driving a custom-made tractor imported from the US, known as a Big Bud. It was on brand for Arthur. Presumably he needed a Big Bud to pull his 33-metre-wide wheat planter, described as the biggest in the world at the time. Arthur's reign was sadly cut short when he was killed in an ultralight aircraft crash on the family property in 2002. His youngest son and protege was first on the scene, having returned from his honeymoon that same day. But John Norman wasted no time in expanding the family empire. By the time Normy was running the show, Norman Farming controlled more than 18,000 hectares of land across two properties bordering the Macintyre River, a major tributary in the northern catchment of the Murray-Darling Basin. More than 5,000 hectares across the two properties — Kalanga and Mobandilla — was high-value irrigated farmland. And Normy squeezed every last drop out of it. 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