CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 16 juillet 2015

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France - 20579/12 Judgment 16.7.2015 [Section V] Article 3 Degrading treatment Inhuman treatment Failure to provide satisfactory and convincing explanation for serious brain damage sustained by person arrested and detained by law-enforcement officers: violation Facts – On 30 November 2004 the first applicant, who was in a state of drunkenness and had been behaving aggressively towards officers of the general security service (SUGE) of the French national railway company (SNCF), was stopped and questioned by the officers, among them L.P., Y.F. and O.D.B. He was arrested without offering any resistance, following which the SUGE officers forced him to the ground and handcuffed his hands behind his back before frisking him. He was then put in a nearby police vehicle. During the journey to the police station and on arrival he complained of nausea, and he had to be helped out of the vehicle by police officers. On arriving at the police cells, he lost consciousness and fell into a coma. After receiving first aid, he was taken to hospital, where he was examined before undergoing surgery to remove a subdural haematoma and to treat fractures to the skull and ribs. The first applicant was officially in police custody between 8.15 and 10.10 p.m. The public prosecutor, after being notified at 8.40 p.m., ordered the opening of an investigation under the flagrante delicto procedure into an offence of assault committed by a person in public authority. The police and SUGE officers who had intervened or been present at the time of the arrest were interviewed, but gave conflicting accounts. In December 2004 the public prosecutor asked for a judicial investigation to be opened in respect of L.P., Y.F. and O.D.B. for assault, and they were charged the same day. The applicants (the victim and his brother, mother and father), assisted by counsel, applied to join the proceedings as civil parties. Between February 2005 and June 2008 the first applicant was admitted to various functional rehabilitation centres. On his release, his degree of permanent partial disability was assessed at 95%. Being unable to perform basic everyday tasks independently, he was confined to a wheelchair and was incapable of any autonomous occupational activity. In December 2006, in view of the deterioration in the first applicant’s health, the three SUGE officers were charged with assault occasioning permanent disability. Evidence was taken from a large number of witnesses, in some cases on the investigating judge’s instructions and in other cases directly by the investigating judge. However, the statements taken were not consistent. Expert reports were ordered, but were likewise contradictory. In February 2010 the investigating judge at the tribunal de grande instance discontinued the proceedings, finding that the substantial brain damage suffered by the first applicant had been the result of events occurring before he had been stopped and questioned by the SUGE officers and taken to the police station by police officers. She observed that the investigation had been unable to establish the precise circumstances surrounding those events, or who had been responsible. The applicants appealed against the discontinuance order, but their appeals were rejected. Law – Article 3 ( substantive aspect ): Having suffered a subdural haematoma, resulting in his losing consciousness and falling into a coma, the first applicant had sustained serious lasting damage, losing the ability to perform basic everyday tasks independently. Such consequences exceeded the level of severity required for his alleged treatment to fall within the scope of Article   3 of the Convention. The circumstances of the case did not solely concern the first applicant’s time in police custody, but also the conditions in which he was arrested by the SUGE officers and handed over to the police officers to be taken to the police station. The Court therefore examined whether his allegations could be substantiated by the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact. Even though the first applicant’s injuries had become apparent while he was in police custody, following his forcible arrest during which he had been pinned to the ground, the investigation had ruled out the possibility that the blow he had suffered might have resulted from the police officers’ actions. His injuries had therefore been attributed to events occurring prior to his arrest. However, the investigations by the domestic authorities had not established what these events had actually entailed. Furthermore, the various experts had reached conflicting conclusions. In addition, the statements by the SUGE officers and police officers – which had served as the sole basis for the reconstruction on which the last expert report had relied – were themselves contradictory, with the respective authorities blaming each other for the first applicant’s injuries. The statements made by some of the police officers varied considerably over the course of the investigation. The Court found the silences and inconsistencies in the statements surprising, particularly in a case concerning the alleged assault of a person found to be carrying serious injuries while in police custody. Lastly, as to the justification for the use of force during the first applicant’s arrest, there were again contradictions between the different witness statements. The domestic investigations had therefore yielded conflicting and disturbing evidence, both in the successive expert reports and in the statements about the reasons why the first applicant had been arrested and handed over to the police and the conditions in which this had taken place. The theory that the first applicant had suffered violent blows prior to his arrest – accepted as plausible by the Investigation Division – did not appear sufficiently substantiated to be persuasive in the circumstances of the case. In view of all these considerations, sufficient inferences could be found in the present case to support a finding of a violation of Article 3, seeing that the domestic authorities had not provided a satisfactory and convincing explanation of the cause of the first applicant’s injuries, the symptoms of which had become apparent while he was in police custody. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). The Court also held unanimously that there had been no violation of the procedural limb of Article   3, given that as soon as the alleged offence had been detected, a preliminary investigation had been opened, during which several witnesses had given evidence and a re-enactment of the scene had been performed. Later, a judicial investigation had likewise been opened promptly, giving rise to a large number of investigative measures. Furthermore, the final expert report, which had been produced on the basis of a full reconstruction of the events, appeared justified by the requirements of establishing the truth. Lastly, the first applicant, who had brought a civil-party complaint and been represented by counsel, had had the opportunity to apply for investigative measures and to put his case forward. Article 41: reserved.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes