A man who successfully sued a phone shop for accidentally destroying a memory card containing hugely sentimental family photographs is just happy his eight month ordeal is nearly over.

Ben Rayner went to Phone Touch in Stevenage town centre in October to buy a memory card reader.

The 29-year-old handed over the card, which contained photos of his late grandad and first family holiday, so the staff could see which reader he needed.

As they checked it the person accidently broke the card, destroying all the precious information it contained.

“The guy snapped it while he was looking at it,” he said.

“I didn’t know what to say. They were just busy laughing at me saying: ‘Go and make new memories’.

“How can you show so much disrespect? They are professional people.

“I gave them that card to fix a problem, but now I can’t get the data back and there is nothing anyone can do.”

Ben asked for compensation and decided to take the electrical shop to court when they refused. His first case was heard at Stevenage Magistrates’ Court in February where the company offered to try to fix the card.

Ben agreed but the data couldn’t be found and he sent it off to a company in London who said the data had been permanently lost.

The case then went to Luton County Court in May where judges found in Ben’s favour and awarded him £700 for compensation and court costs.

The father-of-two said: “It has been a mess. I have never done anything like this before.

“It is such a weight off my shoulders knowing that the truth finally did come out at the end of the day.

“For me that is all that matters and now I can put it all to bed.”

Ben is now waiting for his money which he should receive in the next couple of weeks.

The Comet made repeated attempts to offer Phone Touch a chance to comment on the court case, but the firm is yet to respond.