A DAD-of-two who organised a surprise photoshoot for his baby daughter was left out of pocket after the photography studio suddenly went into liquidation earlier this year.

Phil Silk, 38, from Stockton Heath, had arranged for photos to be taken of his daughter, Victoria, last Christmas at Exposure One studios in Palmyra Square South.

He paid £100 towards the photos and said he received one picture after the first photoshoot, but still owed around £150 to the company.

When Phil tried to contact the company to pay the outstanding amount, he discovered they had gone into liquidation and he called the liquidation firm, Absolute Recovery, to ask about his photos.

Phil was told that they have four hard drives containing customers' outstanding photographs, which they intend to destroy because of security risks and the photos being badly labelled.

He said: “I think they are worried about showing photos to people when potentially the owners haven’t authorised it.

“It sounds like a lot of people are dodging the issue because it’s pictures of babies.

“Liquidation firms don’t care about people. If I had spent thousands I would be quite angry about it but I still owed them £100 and they should have chased customers for money they owed so they could stay in business.

“I understand why someone goes into liquidation and it can be a difficult situation but it’s all digital photos so you could just give them to clients, it’s not like a shop with stock where you have to account for everything.

“They obviously knew that they were going into liquidation, so they should have contacted clients.”

Absolute Recovery refused to comment.

Exposure One entered voluntary liquidation on March 2 and a message on its website reads: “Unfortunately Exposure One Ltd has had no choice but to go into liquidation. This is something that we have done everything in our power to try and prevent but is now out of our control.

“Please accept our deepest sincere apologies - this is something that has affected us all - and we wish all of our customers and every member of staff the very best of luck.”

Shortly after the studio closed, another photography studio opened in its place.

Phil had organised the Christmas themed shoot of his daughter as a surprise for Victoria’s mum and said: “It’s a shame because her mum never saw the pictures and they were nice photographs.”

He became a dad for the second time five months ago and was hoping to organise a second photoshoot with his son, Zachary.

He said: “Naturally we were going to have the next shoot of the children together but we are going to look for somewhere else now.”