The local authority which tried to take three siblings into care but dropped the case after having run up huge costs in public money has been named as Coventry City Council.

Judge Clifford Bellamy, who dealt with the original care proceedings, has issued a judgment in which he agreed to a BBC application that the council at the heart of the case should be identified.

In his original judgment, handed down in June, Judge Bellamy criticised the council, which was not being named at that time, over its handling of the case.

He also ordered it to pay a total of £100,000 towards the family's estimated costs of almost £400,000, which were funded with taxpayers' money through the Legal Services Commission.

Such a figure, the judge said, was a "matter of concern" in a case where "at the 11th hour" the authority sought leave to withdraw its application for care orders for the three children.

The "wider" costs issue had caused him concern, he said, adding: "In recent times the cost of family legal aid funding has been a matter of governmental concern and public debate."

It has been reported that expenditure on family legal aid has grown from £399 million in 2001/2002 to £582 million in 2007/2008 - a real-terms increase of 24%.

The judge said: "Although some may say that when it comes to issues relating to the welfare of a child the question of how much the proceedings cost should be secondary to the overriding requirement to achieve an outcome that is in the best interest of the child, this must be tempered by an acceptance that the availability of resources to fund public law Children Act proceedings is not limitless."

The case related to the authority's application for care orders in respect of three children, now aged 12, nine and eight, over allegations that their parents subjected them to unnecessary hospital admissions, medical examinations and tests and that this had been achieved by their having lied about or exaggerated the children's symptoms.

Judge Bellamy said it was a case that fell under the broad categorisation of fabricated or induced illness (FII). The judge emphasised: "An allegation of FII is a very serious allegation to make against a parent and one that should not be made lightly.

"Before making an allegation of FII a local authority should be rigorous in satisfying itself that the evidence available, if accepted by the court, is capable of establishing to the requisite standard that there has in fact been fabricated or induced illness."