Imagine this: you think you’ve deleted those incriminating messages, a sigh of relief escapes your lips. But what if they weren’t really gone? That’s the situation a recently divorced man finds himself in, and it’s leading him to sue Apple for a whopping £5 million (~ $6.3 million).

According to The Times, the man, whose name remains undisclosed, had been using iMessage on his iPhone to arrange meetings with prostitutes. Believing he’d covered his tracks, he deleted the messages from his phone. Unfortunately for him, his wife also used iMessage – on the family iMac. There, she discovered a treasure trove of messages, exposing years of infidelity. The discovery led to a swift divorce filing.

The man blames Apple for his crumbled marriage. “If you are told a message is deleted you are entitled to believe it’s deleted,” he argues in The Times. The emotional toll has been heavy, with him reportedly taking medication to manage panic attacks. “I genuinely thought I was going to have a heart attack,” he says. “Divorce is an extraordinarily stressful process… In my opinion, it’s all because Apple told me my messages were deleted when they weren’t.”

The man’s legal team, Rosenblatt, is taking this a step further. They’re looking to turn this into a class-action lawsuit, potentially representing other iPhone users who’ve faced similar situations.

So, what exactly went wrong here? Well, there are two key points. First, the man’s infidelity, is the root cause of the marital breakdown. Second, his misunderstanding of how message deletion works on iPhones.

Apple’s support documents state: “If you use Messages in iCloud, deleting a message or conversation on your Mac deletes it from all your devices where Messages in iCloud is on.” This suggests the man likely didn’t have iCloud enabled on his iPhone, possibly a deliberate attempt to hide his actions. Ironically, this is what ultimately exposed him.

Here’s the key takeaway: deleting messages only removes them from the device you’re using if iCloud isn’t linked. The messages will still exist on any other linked devices and, of course, the recipient’s device.

Rosenblatt argues that Apple isn’t transparent enough about this. “In many cases, the iPhone informs the user that messages have been deleted but, as we have seen, that isn’t true and is misleading because they are still found on other linked devices — something Apple doesn’t tell its users,” says Simon Walton of Rosenblatt. Technically, Apple does provide this information, but you need to know where to look.

The likelihood of the man winning his £5 million lawsuit remains unclear. However, his legal team seems confident. Apple, for its part, has yet to make a public statement on the case.