Irwin death tape 'should be destroyed'

By Peter Mitchell in Los Angeles
September 06, 2006 11:40am

THE footage of Steve Irwin's death should be destroyed, his manager and friend John Stainton said today.

"I would never want that tape shown," Stainton told CNN talk show host Larry King.

"It should be destroyed.

"At the moment it is in police custody for evidence. There's a coroner's inquest taking place at the moment.

"When that is finally released it will never see the light of day.

"Never. Ever.

"I actually saw it and I don't want to see it again."

Irwin, 44, died on Monday when stabbed in the chest by a stingray barb while snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and Stainton has said footage of the incident is "terrible".

The footage shows Irwin pulling the barb out of his chest before dying.

While Stainton wants the footage kept under wraps, media experts say it may soon be circulating on the internet.

"The key point is once there's something on film, it's impossible to keep it contained," Paul Levinson, chairman of Fordham University's Department of Communication and Media Studies, said.

Mr Stainton, who broke down several times during the CNN interview, said Irwin's wife, Terri, was struggling with her husband's death.

When King asked a teary Stainton how Terri was doing, Mr Stainton replied: "A lot worse than me".

Mr Stainton told how he travelled with Irwin's body in a casket on a seaplane from Cairns to Irwin's family on Queensland's Sunshine Coast yesterday.

"We brought him home last night because he has been in Cairns," Mr Stainton said.

"I travelled on the plane with him for six hours, just him and I. For five hours I couldn't stop crying. It was devastating."

When Irwin's family saw the casket, it brought a sense of reality that the larger than life Irwin had died, he said.

"The fact that we finally got him home and the family saw the casket last night, it was like a full stop," Mr Stainton said.

"Until you actually see that you can't imagine it.

"You think it's a dream and it's not happening. But it is and it has and it's done."

Mr Stainton said the family was still too distressed to decide when Irwin's funeral would take place.

The Irwin family has been offered a state funeral.

"We haven't worked it out yet," he said.

"We can't even get to it.

"Just listening to his voice. It's just hard."

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