A photographer?s legal fight with EMI over lost pictures of the band Blur continues six weeks after a writ was filed in the High Court.

Paul Postle’s precious photographs of the band, valued at £170,000, were thrown away by a cleaner working for EMI, it is alleged.

Postle shot the photos at the height of Blur?s fame during the Britpop era of the 1990s.

It is believed that the pictures ? running into the hundreds – were trashed nearly a decade ago, but that it took EMI six years to notify Postle of the loss.

It is understood that the photos were housed in three boxes with a label attached stating ?Not rubbish, Do not throw away.?

A cleaner allegedly got rid of the pictures after using a ?waste compactor?.

Postle had captured the images for Blur?s hit album Parklife which was released in 1994.

A legal action filed by the photographer in the High Court states that EMI had agreed to hold Postle?s archive.

The writ was issued six weeks ago but EMI has yet to respond, according to Postle?s lawyer, Rupert Grey (pictured).

Grey told Amateur Photographer yesterday: ?Rolls of film from four shoots were lost.?

He said the pictures were captured in the early 1990s, before the digital revolution, and so there is no original digital file.

?The point is we are talking about originals,? stressed Grey, a solicitor at Swan Turton.

?They were all negatives or transparencies.?

A spokeswoman for EMI told Amateur Photographer that the company did not wish to comment on the allegation.

EMI sued the cleaning company over the loss of Postle?s images three years ago, but the case deprived the photographer of taking action himself, said Grey.

It was only then, when asked to place a value on the photos, that Postle learned they had gone missing.

The case is understood to have been settled out of court.

The loss of images captured on film, before digital imaging, has sparked several legal cases in the recent past, among them an action by the survival expert Ray Mears who is a keen photographer.

?A professional photographer?s transparencies and negatives are worth more and more these days. There is value in the originals,? Grey added.