5.  The applicant was born in 1968 and lives in St Petersburg. 6.  The applicant and his parents live in an apartment which they share with two other families. 7.  In April 2001 the applicant beat up Bo., who was a member of one of the families living in the same apartment. Bo. complained to the police about the beating. On 1 October 2002 the applicant was convicted of affray in this connection and given a six-month suspended sentence. In the context of these proceedings the applicant had been detained on remand between 10 June and 15 July 2002. It does not appear that he ever complained about this detention before the competent authorities at the domestic level. 8.  At around 5 p.m. on 8 December 2001 K., a neighbourhood police inspector, and police officer S., the Deputy Head of the 28th Section of the St Petersburg Central District Department of the Interior (“the District Department of the Interior”), arrived at the applicant’s apartment to request him to attend an interview. At the time, he had not been either classed as a suspect or formally charged. Bo. let the officers into the apartment and they saw the applicant entering his room and locking the door behind him. 9.  The applicant’s mother blocked the way to her son’s door. S. explained the reasons for their visit to the applicant’s mother, but she asked them to leave. According to S., the applicant’s mother verbally insulted him and punched him several times in the chest. The applicant disagreed and submitted that his mother had simply blocked access to the door, but had not insulted or punched anyone. 10.  The applicant’s neighbours, who were present during the incident, later confirmed that the applicant’s mother had used abusive language and had tried to hit S. 11.  K. then left the building in order to prevent the applicant from escaping through a window and S. stayed in the apartment and called for police reinforcements. Some time later, officers Sh., D.B. and M. arrived at the apartment. S. told them to take the applicant’s mother to the police station for insulting the policemen on duty. 12.  According to the applicant, and as also noted in the statement of his neighbours given during the subsequent investigation, the policemen then forced the door to his room, entered the room and some time later led him outside the apartment and put him into a car. The applicant submitted that during the arrest the policemen had punched and kicked him all over the body. 13.  The Government submitted that the applicant had himself come out of his room, acted aggressively and sworn at the police officers. 14.  The applicant and his mother were both arrested and put into the same police car. The police took them to the District Department of the Interior and locked them in cells for administrative detainees. 15.  According to an undated and unsigned handwritten report to a head of the District Department of the Interior submitted by the Government, the applicant was detained on 8 December 2001 on suspicion of “an administrative offence”. Without mentioning the legal characterisation of the offence, the report also described the circumstances of the arrest and stated that the applicant had pushed the officers away and had sworn at and threatened them, that he had waved his arms and behaved in a belligerent fashion. It was mentioned that physical force had been applied to arrest the applicant. It appears that the report was written by one of the policemen who had taken part in the applicant’s arrest on 8 December 2001. 16.  The case file also contains a copy of a decision of 8 December 2001 to institute criminal proceedings against the applicant in connection with the episode involving his neighbour which had taken place in April 2001. 17.  In the context of these criminal proceedings, on 9 December 2001 an investigator decided to apply a measure of restraint in respect of the applicant, in the form of an undertaking not to leave his place of residence while the criminal proceedings were pending. The decision did not mention the applicant’s previous arrest, but did bear his signature confirming that he had been notified about it. 18.  It is undisputed that the applicant was held in detention until 10 December 2001. At around 10 a.m. on that day he was brought before a judge, St., of the Kuybyshevskiy District Court and then released. 19.  The applicant submitted that the judge had refused to examine the materials submitted by the police because of various “mistakes in these documents” and the administrative proceedings were thus discontinued. 20.  The Government did not comment on this allegation and were unable to provide the Court with the materials pertaining to the administrative case of the applicant, explaining that they had been destroyed following the expiry of the time-limit for storage of such documents in February 2003, April 2005 and April 2007. They did not submit any specific information as to the existence of a record of the applicant’s administrative detention. 21.  The Government did not dispute the timing of the applicant’s detention and release. 22.  According to the applicant, prior to the events of 8 December 2001 he had been undergoing alcohol rehabilitation treatment in a specialised clinic. On that day he had paid a weekend visit to his family. 23.  Upon release, he returned to the clinic, where he resumed his treatment, despite an aching chest and head. Upon his discharge from the clinic on 29 December 2001, he applied for specialised medical assistance in a nearby hospital. 24.  On the same day he was diagnosed as having multiple fractures of the ribs, a closed cranio-cerebral injury and a closed fracture of a heel bone. He remained in that hospital for further treatment until 5 January 2002. 25.  On 12 December 2001 the applicant and his mother asked a prosecutor to initiate criminal proceedings against police officers S., K. and other policemen who had allegedly ill-treated them on 8 December 2001. In their application, they referred specifically to the policemen’s allegedly unlawful entry to the apartment and the applicant’s family’s accommodation, to having been beaten and to their subsequent arrest and detention. 26.   On 28 January 2002 Ts., an assistant prosecutor at the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office, refused to institute criminal proceedings, because no signs of crime had been detected. 27.  On 8 February 2002 Mo., a supervising prosecutor at the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office, instituted criminal proceedings against S. on the basis of the complaint by the applicant and his mother about S.’s actions. She argued that:
“... [the decision of 28 January 2002] had been unlawful and should be quashed in so far as it had concerned the actions of the police officers.
Thus, [the relevant legislation] indeed empowers the policemen to enter without hindrance the residential premises of private citizens. However, this power is provided only in the event that the [policemen are pursuing] anyone suspected of criminal activity. In the case at hand, [the applicant] was not a suspect within the meaning of [the domestic law on criminal procedure], the criminal case against him was instituted only later, which policemen K. and S. certainly knew. In addition, in breach of the mentioned legal norm obliging the police to inform the relevant prosecutor of all such cases within twenty-four hours, this was not done ...”
The decision did not address the question of the origin of the applicant’s injuries, and dealt mostly with the grievances of the applicant’s mother. The prosecutor decided to institute criminal proceedings but for some reason failed to explicitly quash the decision of 28 January 2002. 28.  On 8 June 2002 investigator Ch. of the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the criminal proceedings against S. 29.  The investigator collected the following evidence. He questioned S., who stated that during the incident in the applicant’s apartment he had been verbally insulted several times. The applicant had refused to follow him to the police station and had locked himself in his room. S. had had to call for reinforcements and take the applicant to the police station by force. 30.  The investigator also questioned K., who stated that he had been in charge of looking into Bo.’s complaint that he had been beaten up by the applicant. On 8 December 2001, having learned that the applicant was at home, he had gone with officer S. to request him to attend a police interview. They had met the applicant in the apartment. Then K. had left the building and had seen the reinforcing officers arriving. Sh. and M. had gone upstairs and had soon come back, pulling the applicant and his mother to the car by the arms. 31.  The investigator questioned the applicant’s neighbours Bo. and Sv., who stated that the police officers had forced open the door to the applicant’s room and had entered it without permission. 32.  The decision did not address the applicant’s complaint of ill-treatment by the policemen and his injuries. 33.  In the light of the above evidence, the investigator concluded that S., by ordering the applicant’s arrest and transfer to the police station, had acted lawfully. 34.  On 1 July 2002 deputy prosecutor B. S. of the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 8 June 2002 and ordered additional investigation of the applicant’s complaint concerning alleged unlawful actions by S. 35.  On 21 October 2002 an investigator at the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the criminal proceedings against S. He argued that S. had acted lawfully and had not abused his authority. The investigator also found that the applicant and his mother had insulted S. The decision did not address the question of the applicant’s injuries. 36.  On 17 February 2003 deputy prosecutor B.S. of the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 21 October 2002 and ordered an additional investigation into the applicant’s complaints. 37.  On 3 April 2003 investigator A. Sh. of the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the criminal proceedings. The decision focused solely on the applicant’s mother and did not address the applicant’s grievances, mentioning that administrative proceedings had been brought against the applicant and that their outcome was unclear because the relevant documents had been destroyed. Overall, the investigator concluded that there was no evidence that S. had abused his powers. 38.  On 30 December 2003 deputy prosecutor A. Zh. of the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 3 April 2003 and ordered additional investigation by another prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor noted that it had not been possible to establish with certainty the circumstances of the incident between the applicant and the police officers, due to inconsistencies in the witnesses’ statements. The decision also noted that on 29 December 2001 the applicant had applied for medical assistance at the local hospital, had been diagnosed as having a number of injuries and that no investigation had been conducted in this connection. The decision mentioned without referring to the source of that information that the applicant’s injuries might have resulted from a fall earlier on that day. The prosecutor questioned this version of events, noted that the investigation conducted so far was inadequate and, among other things, ordered an investigation as to whether the applicant’s injuries could have been inflicted during the arrest of 8 December 2001. 39.  On 18 February 2004 an investigator from the St Petersburg Admiralteyskiy District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the criminal proceedings against S. He noted that the decision of 8 February 2002 had not quashed the decision of 28 January 2002, and that the original decision was still in force. Thus, the institution of criminal proceedings at a time when there was a valid decision to discontinue them was unlawful. The investigator noted in his decision that, in entering the apartment against the will of its owner and ordering the policemen to take the applicant to the police station, S. had acted unlawfully, because such actions were only lawful if aimed at interrupting ongoing criminal activity. The decision also noted that the allegedly aggressive behaviour of the applicant and his mother were “an understandable reaction” to unlawful actions on the part of the policemen. 40.  On 31 March 2004 deputy prosecutor A. Zh. of the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 18 February 2004 due to the inadequacy of the investigation and ordered an additional investigation. 41.  On 31 May 2004 investigator Zh. of the St Petersburg Admiralteyskiy District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the criminal proceedings against S. The investigator stated that it had not been possible to establish with certainty the circumstances of the incident between the applicant and the police officers due to inconsistencies in the witnesses’ statements. 42.  He argued that S. had unlawfully entered the apartment against the applicant’s will and had given an illegal order to take the applicant and his mother to the police station. The investigator further argued that the institution of criminal proceedings at a time when the decision of 28 January 2002 to discontinue them was still in force was unlawful and that all the evidence collected in the course of the newly opened investigation was inadmissible. 43.  The decision gave details of a forensic examination of the applicant’s medical condition which had taken place on an unspecified date. It mentioned specifically that:
“... a closed fracture of the front eighth and ninth left ribs took place no more than two-three weeks prior to [29 December 2001], a closed fracture of the fifth and sixth left ribs took place over four weeks before [29 December 2001] [and] a closed fracture of the right heel bone took place in a term not exceeding (approximately) one month before [29 December 2001] ... [whilst] a bruise on the left side of the back was received no more than two weeks before [29 December 2001] ...”.
The decision also mentioned that both the applicant and his mother were civil claimants in this criminal case. 44.  The applicant challenged the decision in court. 45.  On 17 February 2005 the Smolninskiy District Court in St Petersburg examined the applicant’s complaint against the investigator’s decision of 31 May 2004 and rejected it. The court upheld the investigator’s conclusion that the institution of criminal proceedings at a time when the decision of 28 January 2002 to discontinue them was still in force was unlawful, and that all evidence gathered in the course of the newly opened proceedings was inadmissible. The applicant appealed. On 7 April 2005 the St Petersburg City Court rejected the applicant’s appeal. 46.  On 2 June 2004 deputy prosecutor A. Zh. of the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 8 February 2002 to institute criminal proceedings. On 2 June 2004 the deputy prosecutor quashed the decision of 28 January 2002 to discontinue the criminal proceedings and ordered an additional investigation. 47.  On 11 June 2004 deputy prosecutor K. of the St Petersburg Central District Prosecutor’s Office again discontinued the criminal proceedings against S. The deputy prosecutor noted that because the applicant had refused to follow them to the police station, police officers Sh. and M. had taken the applicant by the arms and led him out of the apartment. He concluded that the police officers had acted lawfully during the incident, which had been provoked by the applicant and his mother. The deputy prosecutor also mentioned that the documents pertaining to the administrative proceedings against the applicant and her son, namely the records of administrative offences, had been destroyed. It did not address the issue of the lawfulness of the arrest and the detention or the question of the origin of the applicant’s injuries. In taking the decision, the prosecutor did not refer to any specific piece of evidence. The decision did not rely on any evidence, either new or old, in reaching the above conclusions. 48.  The applicant challenged this decision in court. 49.  On 1 November 2004 the Smolninskiy District Court in St Petersburg rejected the complaint against the decision of 11 June 2004. The court noted that:
“... the statements of all persons questioned in connection with the case have been analysed, the events have been described in the decision [of 11 June 2004] in chronological order and do not contradict the evidence contained in the materials of inquiry ... submitted to the court. The statements of policemen Sh., D.B., K. and S., that they did not do anything illegal ... and that the conflict was provoked by [the applicant’s mother], who had refused to follow the lawful orders of the policemen, are also confirmed by the statements of witness L. ...”.
The applicant appealed against the judgment. 50.  On 27 January 2005 the St Petersburg City Court rejected the applicant’s appeal.