issued by the Registrar of the Court  
ECHR 230 (2011)  
08.11.2011  
Police who injured schizophrenic suspect during arrest guilty of  
inhuman and degrading treatment  
In today’s Chamber judgment in the case V.D. v. Croatia (application no. 15526/10),  
which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there  
had been:  
Two violations of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of  
the European Convention on Human Rights.  
The case concerned the complaint by the applicant, who suffers from schizophrenia, that  
the police ill-treated him while trying to arrest him.  
Principal facts  
The applicant, V. D., is a Croatian national who was born in 1960 and lives in Zagreb  
(Croatia). He is suffering from schizophrenia.  
In August 2006, the police brought a criminal complaint against V.D. It concerned an  
alleged incident which happened on the night of 11 August 2006 in the flat of V.D.’s  
parents, when he tried to strangle his own son and to assault the police officers who had  
arrived at the flat to rescue the boy.  
On 6 September 2006, an investigation was opened in respect of V.D. on suspicion of  
attempted murder. In October 2006, evidence was taken from the police officers present  
at V.D.’s flat, from a forensic expert, from V.D.’s common-law wife and from his parents.  
In November 2006 V.D. was charged with attempted murder and on 27 March 2007 he  
was found guilty of trying to kill his son and of attempting to prevent an official from  
carrying out his duties.  
In the meantime, in January 2007, V.D.’s parents brought a criminal complaint against  
two of the police officers who had been at the flat on the night of the incident. They  
alleged that the officers had brutally beaten their son after being called by someone who  
had witnessed a minor argument which V.D. had had with his common-law wife outside  
the building. An ambulance had taken V.D. to the hospital and the medical report drawn  
up at the time showed that he had sustained a head contusion, tongue laceration,  
haematomas around the eyes, haemorrhage of both eyes and lesions on the neck and  
the right shoulder. The complaint was dismissed on the grounds that V.D. had injured  
himself. V.D.’s parents filed a private accusation against the officer, again to no avail.  
In August 2007, V.D.’s lawyer brought a criminal complaint against the other two police  
officers who had allegedly been involved in V.D.’s beating. That complaint was also  
dismissed as the court found that V.D. had hurt himself while resisting arrest by biting  
his tongue and banging his head on the floor. A private accusation which V.D.’s parents  
1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month  
period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the  
Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further  
examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral  
request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.  
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for  
supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:  
www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution  
filed subsequently against the officers resulted in a court order for an investigation to be  
carried out. The proceedings appear to be still pending.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
Relying in particular on Article 3, V.D. complained that the police beat him while  
arresting him and that his related complaints were not investigated effectively.  
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 22 February  
2010.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven, composed as follows:  
Anatoly Kovler (Russia), President,  
Nina Vajić (Croatia),  
Peer Lorenzen (Denmark),  
Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),  
Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijan),  
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (“the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”),  
Julia Laffranque (Estonia), Judges,  
and also Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
Inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3)  
Admissibility  
The Court recalled that it had repeatedly found in earlier case law that the payment of  
damages as a result of a civil action did not absolve the State concerned from its  
obligation under Article 3 to carry out an effective investigation into allegations of  
ill-treatment. In addition, as the criminal proceedings which had been brought by the  
applicants as a private party after the State had refused to prosecute the two of the  
police officers were still pending, the Court decided to assess them together with the  
merits.  
Ill-treatment  
After the police intervention at his parents’ flat, V.D. had sustained a number of injuries.  
It had been undisputed that he had attacked one of the officers and bitten him on the  
arm. The police officers had maintained that he had banged his head on the floor and bit  
his tongue in their presence. While the officers had denied beating V.D., they had  
submitted that he had not had any visible injuries when they had arrived at the flat.  
Consequently, the Court concluded that V.D. had been injured during the police  
intervention at his parents’ flat.  
The forensic expert had categorically excluded that V.D. could have injured himself by  
hitting himself and had suggested that the injuries had rather been caused by blows with  
a hard object or by kicking him when he had been lying down. However, the Croatian  
authorities had accepted the version presented by the police officers and had not reacted  
to the findings of the forensic expert. The Government had not furnished any convincing  
arguments to explain how V.D. had sustained his injuries. The Court therefore  
considered that the police officers had subjected V.D. to inhuman and degrading  
treatment, in violation of Article 3.  
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Investigation  
The authorities had dismissed the first criminal complaint brought against two of the  
police officers without taking into account the findings of the forensic report. They had  
done so despite the fact that that report had been the only source establishing how  
V.D.’s injuries had been caused. No further effort had been made to establish the exact  
manner in which V.D. had been injured and to assess whether the force used against  
him at the time of arrest had been adequate or excessive.  
The second criminal proceedings against the other two police officers were still pending  
after more than three years of inactivity at the initial stages.  
Consequently, no effective investigation had been carried out in either set of criminal  
proceedings, in violation of Article 3.  
Other articles  
The Court found that, as the question of the effectiveness of the proceedings had already  
been addressed in the context of Article 3, there was no need to examine the applicant’s  
complaint under Article 13.  
Just satisfaction (Article 41)  
The Court held that Croatia was to pay V.D. 23,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-  
pecuniary damage and EUR 8,500 for costs and expenses.  
The judgment is available only in English.  
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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of  
Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European  
Convention on Human Rights.  
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