Communicated on 25 April 2016
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 21759/15
Tiziana PENNINO
against Italy
lodged on 27 April 2015
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Ms Tiziana Pennino, is an Italian national who was born in 1969 and lives in Benevento. She is represented before the Court by Mrs A. Mascia, a lawyer practising in Verona.
The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant and as they appear from the documents on file, may be summarised as follows.
1. The events of 2 April 2013
3. On 2 April 2013, between 1 and 1.15 p.m., the applicant was stopped by two officers of the Benevento Municipal Police while she was driving her car.
4. According to the applicant, the police officers checked her driver’s licence and her vehicle documents. They saw that there was a small dog sitting loose on the passenger seat and remarked that that was unsafe. That led to an argument between the applicant and the officers. The applicant’s nervous and hostile attitude led the police officers to suspect that she was intoxicated, an allegation denied by the applicant. As the officers did not have the necessary equipment to perform a breathalyser test, they requested the assistance of the Road Police (Polizia Stradale). The applicant informed the police officers that she did not agree to being breathalysed and returned to her car. Once she had got back into the vehicle, one of the police officers pulled the car door open and dragged her out of her vehicle by the arm.
5. According to the Municipal Police report (informativa di reato) issued on 3 April 2013, the applicant was stopped because she was driving in an erratic manner, braking suddenly and changing lanes abruptly. The applicant did not seem to be able to exit the vehicle by herself and had to be assisted by one of the officers. The officers reported that they smelled alcohol on her breath. The applicant insulted and threatened them.
6. At 1.30 p.m. officers from the Road Police arrived on the scene and attempted to breathalyse the applicant.
7. According to the applicant, she was not able to take the test because she was in a state of anxiety that was exacerbated by one of the officers shouting at her that she was drunk. That caused her to tremble and so she could not keep the breathalyser in her mouth. The applicant requested that the Carabinieri be called to the scene, but the request was denied.
8. According to the Road Police report (annotazione di servizio della Polizia Stradale), the applicant agreed to be breathalysed, but did not blow into the device in the manner she had been told to do by the officers and refused to cooperate. At one point she threw the device’s mouthpiece into the face of one of the officers. The applicant was described as being in a “clearly altered” state, smelling strongly of alcohol and staggering.
9. The applicant was transferred to the Municipal Police Station (Comando di Polizia Municipale), where she arrived at approximately 1.50 p.m.
10. According to the applicant, once she arrived at the station the lieutenant on duty started drafting an offence report (verbale di contestazione) for driving under the influence of alcohol. The two officers who had stopped her in the street and escorted her to the station were also present, as well as a third officer. She repeatedly requested that she be able to use a telephone to let her family and her lawyer know of her whereabouts but her requests were denied. When she tried to pick up a telephone, one of the officers hit her in order to make her sit down. The same officer twisted the applicant’s arms behind her back and handcuffed her, hurting her wrists. He then squeezed her buttocks and asked her if the handcuffs were tight enough. The applicant started screaming loudly and the officer removed the handcuffs. While doing this, he fractured the applicant’s right thumb and caused other injuries to her wrists. He then warned the applicant not to cause further trouble, otherwise the same things would happen to her. Between 2.15 and 2.30 p.m. the applicant left the station on foot, as her car had been seized.
11. According to the Municipal Police report, upon her arrival at the station the applicant started threatening and insulting the lieutenant on duty and the two officers who had stopped her in the street. When the lieutenant started drafting the offence report, she grabbed a telephone from a desk and ran into the hallway. When an officer tried to stop her, the applicant pushed him violently, causing him to fall. She then threw the telephone out of the window. The applicant, who was in an extremely agitated state, pushed and kicked the other two officers, and they eventually handcuffed her. When the applicant calmed down, the handcuffs were removed. The applicant ran out of the station, leaving her bag and personal effects behind. Her vehicle and driver’s licence were seized under road traffic legislation.
12. According to the applicant, once she had left the station she got a lift to the emergency room of a local hospital, where she was examined. At approximately 8 p.m. she entered a State Police Station and attempted, unsuccessfully, to lodge a criminal complaint against the Municipal Police officers. The officer on duty at the station called an ambulance and at 8.30 p.m. the applicant was examined by ambulance staff. At approximately 9 p.m. she was taken home by ambulance.
2. Medical reports
13. On 2 April 2013, the applicant went to the emergency department of a local hospital (see § 12 above). At 6.42 p.m. she was examined by a radiologist, who established that her right thumb was fractured.
14. On 3 April 2013 the applicant returned to the emergency department that she had visited the day before. According to the medical report, the applicant arrived at the hospital in an agitated state, complaining about pain in several parts of her body. She was examined by a doctor who noted the presence of a splint on her right hand to treat a fracture. The doctor further noted the presence of bruising resulting from traumatic injury (trauma contusivo con ecchimosi) to the right thigh, right shoulder and left wrist.
15. On 4 April 2013 the applicant went to a different hospital. She was examined by an orthopaedist who confirmed the fracture of the thumb and the presence of bruises on her left thigh and on her back. The doctor recommended surgery to treat the fracture but, following the applicant’s refusal to have such surgery, a cast was placed on the fractured thumb.
3. Criminal proceedings against the police officers
16. On 4 April 2013 the applicant lodged a criminal complaint against the two police officers who had stopped her in the street on 2 April 2013 and the other two officers who had been present at the Municipal Police Station, but whose names she was unaware of.
17. An investigation into the applicant’s allegations was initiated. Seven people identified by the applicant as witnesses (persone informate sui fatti) were interviewed. Two were people who stated they had seen one of the officers dragging the applicant out of her vehicle. One was the owner of a bar in which the applicant had gone in order to call her former spouse once she had left the hospital on 2 April 2013. Another was the applicant’s former spouse, who stated that her alcohol intake was limited to consumption during meals. He further stated that, due to a traumatic event in the applicant’s life, when subjected to stressful situations, she became agitated, trembled and had trouble expressing herself. The other three were colleagues who stated that the applicant had not appeared to be intoxicated when she had left her office on 2 April 2013. The police officers who had allegedly been involved in the ill-treatment were not interviewed, and neither was the applicant.
18. On 17 January 2014 the Public Prosecutor requested that the proceedings be discontinued. The basis of the request was that “the allegations in the criminal complaint are not confirmed by the statements made by the witnesses identified by the victim”.
19. On 27 February 2014 the applicant lodged an objection against the Public Prosecutor’s request to discontinue the proceedings. She alleged, among other things, that the investigation had not been thorough. In that connection, she pointed out that no investigation had been carried out with respect to the events that had occurred in the Municipal Police Station, and that the investigative efforts had focused exclusively on what had occurred when she had been stopped in the street. Moreover, the applicant complained that she had not been heard or asked to an interview in order to provide details of her complaint. She further requested that the person who had taken her to the hospital when she had left the police station be interviewed. She also challenged the credibility of the official police reports, as they were in stark contrast with her account of the impugned events.
20. At a hearing on 22 September 2014, the applicant’s lawyer repeated the complaints and requests contained in the objection against the prosecutor’s request to discontinue the proceedings and repeated, in particular, the request to conduct an investigation into the events that had occurred at the Municipal Police Station.
21. By an order of 3 October 2014, served on the applicant on 27 October 2014, the preliminary hearing judge (giudice dell’udienza preliminare) of the Benevento District Court decided to discontinue the proceedings. The order stated that the evidence gathered during the preliminary investigation had not been sufficient to warrant the indictment of the officers. It considered that the victim’s allegations had not been corroborated by the evidence and that further investigation, as requested by the victim, would be “entirely irrelevant”.
4. Criminal proceedings against the applicant
22. Following the conclusion of the preliminary investigation, on 25 October 2013 the applicant was charged with a number of offences in connection with the events of 2 April 2013, including resisting a police officer, insulting a public official (oltraggio a pubblico ufficiale), and driving under the influence of alcohol. The applicant was also charged with causing bodily harm to the police officer she had pushed and kicked at the police station.
23. On an unspecified date, the Public Prosecutor and the applicant reached a plea agreement with respect to the offence of bodily harm and requested that the judge proceed with the imposition of a sentence (Article 444 of the Code of Criminal Procedure – applicazione della pena su richiesta delle parti).
24. On 21 November 2014 the Benevento preliminary hearing judge took note of the plea agreement and sentenced the applicant to twenty-eight days’ imprisonment. The sentence was suspended. On the same date, the preliminary hearings judge suspended the proceedings against the applicant in connection with the charges of resisting a police officer, insulting a public official, and driving under the influence of alcohol. The applicant was placed on probation with the requirement that she perform community service.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that she was ill‑treated by the police and that the investigation into her allegations was neither thorough nor effective.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
2. Having regard to the procedural protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (see paragraph 131 of Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, ECHR 2000-IV), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
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