A SEVERELY disabled young man, whose lifetime care will cost millions, ended up at the centre of an embarrassing squabble over money between three councils.

Wiltshire, Cornwall and South Gloucestershire councils all fought against being landed with the £80,000-a-year bill for the 29-year-old man's care.

The dispute made its way all the way to the Supreme Court - where top judges have now ordered that Wiltshire must pay.

The partially sighted man - who also suffers from autism, epilepsy and partial paralysis - is currently looked after in a residential home.

Having been born in Wiltshire, he was placed with foster parents in South Gloucestershire with whom he lived for 13 years. Meanwhile, his parents had moved to Cornwall with his siblings but continued to travel east regularly to visit him.

The Department of Health initially said Cornwall should pay - even though the man had never lived in the county. That ruling was upheld by the High Court.

The Court of Appeal later reversed that decision, saying that South Gloucestershire should pick up the bill.

However, the Supreme Court has now completed the circle and ruled that Wiltshire, the county of the man's birth, must pay his care home bills.

Lord Carnwath said the whole issue depended on where the man was 'ordinarily resident' when he reached his 18th birthday.

The man had not lived in Wiltshire since he was five and his parents had at that time also moved further west, to Cornwall.

He spent most of his youth in South Gloucestershire - but the judge said the issue had little to do with where he was actually living when he became an adult.

Wiltshire had, in effect, 'exported' the man to South Gloucestershire, where his foster parents lived.

However, for financial and adminstrative purposes, that did not change his ordinary residence, which was and always had been in Wiltshire.

The judge, who was sitting with four other judges, noted that, otherwise, local authorities would be discouraged from helping children from outside their areas who need specialist care.

Although the man had a close bond with both his natural and foster parents, he did not have the legal capacity to express his own view on where he wished to call home.