The public could have known much earlier about the death of Frank Paul if former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell had authorized a public inquest at the time, a coroner testified today.

Campbell, who was B.C.'s chief coroner at the time the native man froze to death in an alley after being driven there by Vancouver Police, decided that the investigation would be better handled internally, Jeanine Robinson testified Wednesday.

"I felt it was tragic that this man was left out in the cold," said regional coroner Jeanine Robinson. "I didn't think the death should be ignored, overlooked or concealed."

Paul, 48, spent the last moments of his life alone and helpless after being removed from the city drunk tank and left in the Downtown Eastside, where he died of hypothermia.

He was found dead in the early-morning hours of Dec. 6, 1998.

Robinson said she wanted a public inquest, and asked her boss, Larry Campbell, who was the chief coroner at the time.

But he dismissed the suggestion, she said. "It was the chief coroner's decision at the beginning not to hold one," she testified.

After a death, a coroner's inquest invites members of the public to issue recommendations on how to prevent future similar deaths. The inquest is open to the public.

Coroner's inquests are mandatory in cases where someone dies in police custody. But because Campbell said Paul died after he was let out of custody, that requirement was waived.

Robinson said she classified the death as accidental, not as a homicide.

"I don't think he intended him to die when he placed him there," she testified.

Robinson was testifying at a public inquiry into the death, where a judge is given special powers to investigate what happened. Campbell has been called to testify at the inquiry on Friday for his side of the story.

Campbell was B.C.'s chief coroner from 1996 until 2000. In 2002, he was elected mayor of Vancouver under the banner of the Coalition of Progressive Electors party.

Campbell didn't run for re-election in 2005 and was appointed senator by then-Prime Minister Paul Martin.