Ex withholding all family photos after separation, any practical ways forward?

[MumGrownupKids]

I left my ex-husband almost six years ago. Two years ago, he cut off my access to all of our family photos — twenty years of my life, gone. I have nothing. Not even a single photo of my own daughter being born.
My daughters understandably don't want to be caught in the middle, so I am facing this alone.
What shocked me further is discovering that UK law offers absolutely no protection in this situation. An ex-partner can legally withhold your family photos, including your own and those of your children being born, and there is nothing you can do about it. The "household exemption" means GDPR simply does not apply.
As a mother, I cannot access my own memories. The law leaves me completely unprotected.
Does anyone know how I can approach this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Two years ago, he cut off my access to all of our family photos

What does this even mean? You'd already been separated for 4 years then, no? What happened to the photos?

You move on and start a new collection of photographs. Don't drive yourself crazy over photographs. Your memories are with you in your own mind, he can't take those. You are well rid of your ex btw.

If you broke up 4 years ago why did you not back up all your photos? I’m assuming you mean a digital space like Google drive?

i would ask your DD in a few months to feign a school project and download a few to give to you.

Sorry but you need to let it go. They're only pictures. You've got the real thing - you lived it, you were there. That's what really matters.

Are there any other family members that can share photos with you?

When I divorced my first H he took all the photos of our relationship - we didn't have children. I was extremely upset about this. I still think about those photos and long to see them.

I have an absolute load of photos from my second marriage, including many of my DS, right from when he was a new born. And ironically I never look at them.

So for me the importance of the photos from my first marriage stems from the fact I don't have them. Probably if I did I would never look at them either.

I'm sorry OP but I think you just need to try and accept the situation.

Is your divorce final OP?
I have an injunction against my Ex due to DV but I had the photos as he was in prison. He was demanding photos but as literally everything was done through solicitors due to the injunction, my solicitor told me I needed to set up a googledrive with a throwaway Gmail and share them all with him. It was in the final order, not sure if there was a legal right to photos or my solicitor was trying to remove all the things he could continue to try and harass me about.

If the photos were taken by you, then you would own the copyright
If you paid for professional photos, you may have contractual rights
If the images are stored on shared devices/accounts from the marriage, there may be an argument they are joint property.

These are the possible LEGAL angles. But not guaranteed and would probably need an active solicitor to pursue and cost a fair bit.

My boss did this. When she moved, the movers threw away the boxes that contained her family photographs by accident. She was devastated at the time, all her photos of her kids, that´s what hit her hardest.
Their relatives collected and sent her the ones they had and she created a new album with those and it did take the sting away.

What an utterly shitty thing to do. And not something most people would anticipate - it’s worth this going onto the “ducks in a row” list

Legally, copyright for photos is with the person who took them. So if Parent A took all pics, they are under no legal obligation to give to Parent B.

When you say cut off access, have you requested the images on a USB?

This happened with my ex. She requested pics off me. I put the ones of them on a USB and gave to her. After a couple of months I deleted all pics with her in as I did not want them. A few months later she comes to me for them again as USB had corrupted or something. Then goes angry with me because I deleted them!!! Started making threats as I had better things to do than spend time recovering backups immediately.

Yes, this probably a ducks in a row question, but to go back to my first point, its a moral thing, not a legal thing.

Did you get a final order for finances? Mine was drafted to say we each kept the things we had in our possession at the time of the order. Which unfortunately for me meant I have a house full of everyone’s old crap but I could have asked for specific items in the divorce. I have some photos but not the ones ex has digitally - he promised it wouldn’t be an issue to give me a copy but then never got round to it - his uselessness is one of the traits I divorced him over. If you haven’t got a final order you can ask for the court to order you get them although in reality no one sensible would bother to argue about this it would be cheaper to just offer to pay to get them copied then argue about it in court. If the divorce and finances were finalised already then there’s nothing you can do via family law.