A FORMER waste management company boss faces four years in jail if he fails within three months to pay back almost £340,000 in clean-up costs, after illegally stockpiling thousands of tonnes of waste.

Judge Daniel Williams told Adrian Lewis – who stockpiled the waste at the Nantyglo site of his firm A Lewis Waste Management and Skip Hire Limited – he had sought to mislead the court by denying he had hidden assets totalling more than £112,000, taken from the accounts of two other firms linked to him.

It forms part of a total bill of £339,023.53 that Judge Williams ordered Lewis to pay, by August 22, towards the £950,000 clean-up bill.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Newport Crown Court held yesterday was told Lewis, aged 46, has assets such as houses and vehicles, and these contribute to the final sum.

It was also claimed that sums of £73,695 and £39,000 were unaccounted for from the bank accounts of two firms – respectively Adrian Lewis Plant Hire Limited and Ace Waste Management and Skip Hire Limited.

The £73,695 was removed from the former account during two-and-a-half months to October 16 2015, the day Lewis was jailed for eight months for environmental offences relating to the Nantyglo site.

The £39,000 was unaccounted for out of more than £119,000 taken from the latter account in the three months after Lewis’s imprisonment.

He told the hearing the £73,695 may have gone on increased business costs, but was withdrawn when he was no longer a director or as involved, due to legal and health problems.

He said he had nothing to do with the firm Ace, and had been in prison when that money was withdrawn.

But Judge Williams said he is “entirely satisfied” Lewis has hidden assets.

“The defendant sought to mislead the court in claiming the purpose was other than that,” he said.

He added: “The evidence that he had no involvement is, I am satisfied, untrue. He was continuing to salt away his assets knowing this day would come.”

Some of the 4,000 tonnes of waste at the Nantyglo site – meant to house 620 tonnes – was hazardous.

In 2013/14, 23 formal complaints were made about it.

The court heard, Lewis continued to import waste despite official warnings to stop in what Judge Williams, jailing him in October 2015, called a “flagrant disregard” of the law.