James Howells, 39, took council to court to try to force it to let him search site for hard drive thrown away by accident

A computer expert’s decade-long battle to recover a £600m bitcoin fortune he says has been lost in a council dump has been halted by a judge.

James Howells, 39, launched a legal case to force Newport city council to allow him to search the site to retrieve a lost hard drive containing the bitcoins.