A NEWPORT man trying to recover a Bitcoin hard drive worth more than £600m after his ex threw it away in 2013 has began his legal action against the council.

James Howells, 39, says his Bitcoin fortune is now worth about £600m, and requires access to a council-owned landfill site to try and locate it.

But Newport City Council remain adamant that granting him entry is illegal, and too dangerous.

The council has asked a High Court judge to strike out the claim by James Howells, whose latest move is to sue local authority to gain access to the site, or receive £495m in compensation.

Representing the council, barrister James Goudie KC said Mr Howells' offer to donate 10% of the Bitcoin to the local community was encouraging the council to "play fast and loose" by "signing up for a share of the action".

Cardiff's High Court heard on December 3, that the father-of-three Mr Howells is "seeking to bribe the council" with this claim.

Mr Howells is convinced the hard drive, containing 8,000 Bitcoins, can be found in a £10 million dig of the Docksway landfill, Newport.

His legal team - made up of lawyers representing the alleged victims of Mohamed Al-Fayed - are suing Newport City Council for the value of the bitcoin and the case is due to be heard in December.

Dean Armstrong KC, representing Mr Howells, said the "bribery" remark was "an unfortunate and pointless phrase" and said his client had a right to access the site to retrieve his Bitcoin.

The hearing yesterday was to determine whether the case should go to a full trial.

Following the hearing in Cardiff, Judge Keyser KC said he would reserve his decision until a later date.

A spokesman for Newport Council said: "The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. 

"The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site.

"The council follows a strict monitoring and reporting regime for all environmental parameters, which we report on frequently to the regulator. 

"In common with other waste disposal authorities, exceedances of some of the levels do occur from time to time and these are logged in Natural Resources Wales' compliance reports.

"Our monitoring and reporting regime is not related to Mr Howells' claim and we believe the mention of it is nothing more than an attempt to draw attention away from a fundamentally weak claim which we are vigorously resisting.

"Yet again responding to Mr Howells' baseless claims are costing the council and Newport taxpayers time and money which could be better spent on delivering services."