Australian police have handed Steve Irwin's widow the only copy of the film of his fatal encounter with a stingray to prevent the grisly footage leaking onto the internet.

The 44-year-old 'Crocodile Hunter' died in September after being stabbed in the chest by a stingray's poisonous barb while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef, setting off an unprecedented outpouring of grief among his fans worldwide.

Footage of his death was handed over to police but friends of the exuberant, khaki-clad naturalist feared that it could be leaked and posted either on video-sharing sites such as youtube - as has happened with the footage of Saddam Hussein's execution - or sold to pay-per view website operators.

Irwin's widow, Terri, said in a US television interview in October that the video should never see the light of day, even though the star had lived so much of his life on the screen. "What purpose would that serve?" she asked.

Michael Barnes, the Queensland State Coroner, said that authorities gave the original video to Terri Irwin in late December and destroyed all remaining copies made by police to assist in their investigation.

"The footage has been the subject of widespread media interest and it was wholly appropriate that we took all possible steps to ensure something of such a personal and tragic nature did not fall into the wrong hands," Mr Barnes said in a statement. "This is in line with the wishes of the Irwin family."

The decision to destroy all copies of the video is unusual. Under normal police procedures, any film or audio evidence of a death is returned to its owners and a copy is made for the state files to be held in perpetuity.

Police made a small number of copies of the video to assist their inquiry into the cause of Irwin’s death, but they were kept under tight security throughout the investigation.

John Stainton, Irwin's friend and business partner and one of the few people to have seen the video, described it as "just a horrible piece of film tape". He said that he had no idea what Terri Irwin planned to do with the tape.

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