CASE OF TALPIS v. ITALY
Preliminary objections joined to merits and dismissed (Article 35-1 - Exhaustion of domestic remedies);Violation of Article 2 - Right to life (Article 2 - Positive obligations;Article 2-1 - Life) (Substantive aspect);Violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Effective investigation;Positive obligations) (Procedural aspect);Violation of Article 14+2 - Prohibition of discrimination (Article 14 - Discrimination) (Article 2 - Right to life;Article 2-1 - Life);Pecuniary damage - claim dismissed (Article 41 - Pecuniary damage;Just satisfaction);Non-pecuniary damage - award (Article 41 - Non-pecuniary damage;Just satisfaction)
Armen Harutyunyan;Guido Raimondi;Kristina Pardalos;Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Robert Spano
6. The applicant was born in 1965 and lives in Remanzaccio. 7. The applicant married A.T., a Moldovan national, and two children were born of the marriage: a daughter in 1992 and a son in 1998. 8. The applicant alleged that after their marriage her husband had started beating her. However, in 2011 the applicant followed her husband to Italy in order to provide her children with the opportunity of a more serene future. 9. The applicant submitted that her husband, who was an alcoholic, had already been physically abusing her for a long time when, on 2 June 2012, she requested the intervention of the police after she and her daughter had been assaulted by A.T. 10. When the police arrived, A.T. had left the family home. He was found in the street in a state of intoxication, with scratches on the left side of his face. The police drew up a report of the incident. The report stated that the applicant had been beaten and bitten in the face and the left leg and that she had a number of bruises. The report also stated that the applicant’s daughter had herself been hit after intervening to protect her mother and presented a neck injury caused by a fingernail and injuries to both arms. The applicant and her daughter were informed of their rights and expressed their intention to go to the hospital accident and emergency unit. 11. The applicant alleged that she had not, however, been informed of the possibility of lodging a complaint or contacting a shelter for battered women. She also submitted that she went to the accident and emergency unit in order to have her injuries recorded, but that after waiting for three hours she had decided to return home. 12. The Government, referring to the police report, submitted that there was no evidence that the applicant had gone to the accident and emergency unit. 13. The applicant submitted that after the assault on 2 June 2012 she had taken refuge in the cellar of her flat and started sleeping there. 14. She recounted the following events as follows. On 19 August 2012, after receiving a threatening telephone call from her husband, and fearing an attack by him, she decided to leave the house. When she returned home, she found that the cellar door had been broken. She tried telephoning a friend to ask if she could stay the night with her, but no one answered her call. She then decided to go back to the cellar. A.T. attacked her there with a knife and forced her to follow him in order to have sexual relations with his friends. Hoping that she would be able to seek help once outside, she resigned herself to following him. She asked a police patrol in the street for help. 15. The police merely checked her and A.T.’s identity papers, and despite the applicant’s assertions that she had been threatened and beaten by her husband, they invited her to go home without offering her help and told A.T. to keep away from her. A.T. was fined for unauthorised possession of a lethal weapon. 16. Shortly after she had returned home, the applicant called the emergency services and was taken to hospital. The doctors noted, among other things, that she suffered from cranial trauma, a head injury, multiple abrasions to her body and a bruise on her chest. It was deemed that her injuries would heal up within a week. 17. The Government indicated that, according to the incident report drawn up by the police, they had arrived at Leopardi Street shortly after midnight. The applicant informed them that she had been hit in the face. A.T. had given the police officers a knife. The applicant told the police that she wanted to go to hospital to have her injuries recorded. She had gone there and A.T. had returned home. The knife had been seized and the applicant fined for unauthorised possession of a lethal weapon. 18. At the hospital the applicant spoke to a social worker and said that she refused to return home to her husband. She was then given shelter by an association for the protection of female victims of violence, IOTUNOIVOI (“the association”). 19. The president of the women’s shelter, accompanied by police officers, went to the cellar where the applicant had been living in order to fetch her clothes and personal effects. 20. From 20 August onwards A.T. began harassing the applicant by telephoning her and sending her insulting messages. 21. On 5 September 2012 the applicant lodged a complaint against her husband for bodily harm, ill-treatment and threats of violence, urging the authorities to take prompt action to protect her and her children and to prevent A.T. from approaching them. She stated that she had taken refuge in a women’s shelter and that A.T. was harassing her by telephone. 22. A.T. was placed under judicial investigation on charges of ill-treating family members, inflicting grievous bodily harm and making threats. The police sent the criminal complaint to the prosecution on 9 October 2012. 23. On 15 October 2012 the prosecution, having regard to the applicant’s requests for protection measures, ordered urgent investigative measures, in particular requesting the police to find potential witnesses, including the applicant’s daughter. 24. The applicant was given shelter by the association for three months. 25. In a letter of 27 August 2012 the head of Udine social services informed the association that there were no resources available to take charge of the applicant or to find alternative accommodation for her. 26. The Government gave a different interpretation of that letter, saying that, as the applicant had not first been referred to the Udine social services, which cared for victims of violence in the context of another project, called “Zero tolerance”, the latter could not pay the association’s expenses. In their submission, female victims of violence could contact social services requesting assistance, which the applicant had not done. 27. On 4 December 2012 the applicant left the shelter to look for work. 28. She said that she had first slept in the street before being accommodated by a friend, and had subsequently found a job as an assistant nurse for elderly people and was then able to rent a flat. According to the applicant, A.T. had continued exerting psychological pressure on her to withdraw her complaint. 29. On 18 March 2013 the prosecution, finding that no investigative measure had been carried out, again asked the police to investigate the applicant’s allegations rapidly. 30. On 4 April 2013, seven months after she had lodged her complaint, the applicant was questioned for the first time by the police. She altered her statements, mitigating the seriousness of her original allegations. Regarding the episode of June 2012 she stated that A.T. had unsuccessfully attempted to hit her and her daughter. With regard to the incident that had occurred in August 2012, she said that A.T. had hit her but had not threatened her with a knife. A.T. had, however, pretended to turn the knife on himself. The applicant also stated that at the time she had not spoken very good Italian and had not been able to express herself properly. She also stated that A.T. had not forced her to have sex with other people and that she had returned to live at the family home. She said that when she had been living at the shelter provided by the association, she had not spoken to her husband on the telephone because she had been told not to. She stated that, barring her husband’s alcoholism, the situation at home was calm. She concluded by saying that her husband was a good father and a good husband and that there had been no further episodes of violence. 31. The applicant submitted that she had altered her original statements because of the psychological pressure exerted on her by her husband. 32. On 30 May 2013 the Udine public prosecutor’s office, after noting, firstly, that the applicant, who had been interviewed in April, had mitigated her allegations against her husband saying that he had not threatened her with a knife and that she had been misunderstood by an employee from the shelter where she had taken refuge and, secondly, that no other violent episode had occurred, asked the investigating judge to close the complaint lodged against A.T. for ill-treatment of family members. Regarding the offence of grievous bodily harm, the prosecuting authorities indicated that they intended to continue the investigations. 33. In a decision of 1 August 2013 the investigating judge discontinued the part of the complaint concerning the allegations of ill-treatment of family members and threats. He considered that the course of the events was unclear and that, with regard to the alleged ill-treatment, the offence had not been made out because, since the applicant had complained only about the incident of August 2012, the criterion of repeated episodes of violence was not satisfied. 34. With regard to the complaint of threats aggravated by the use of a weapon, the investigating judge noted that the applicant’s statements were contradictory and that in the report drawn up by the hospital there was no reference to knife injuries. 35. With regard to the offence of causing bodily harm, the proceedings were continued before the magistrate. A.T. was committed for trial on 28 October 2013. The first hearing was held on 13 February 2014 and A.T. was ordered to pay a fine of 2,000 euros (EUR) on 1 October 2015. 36. It can be seen from the case file that on 18 November 2013 A.T. received notice of his committal for trial before the magistrate’s court on 19 May 2014 for inflicting bodily harm on the applicant in August 2012. 37. In the night of 25 November 2013 the applicant sought the intervention of the police in connection with a dispute with her husband. 38. The police made the following findings in their report: on their arrival they saw that the bedroom door had been broken down and that the floor was strewn with bottles of alcohol. The applicant had stated that her husband was under the influence of alcohol and that she had decided to call for help because she thought he needed a doctor. She told them that she had lodged a complaint against her husband in the past, but that she had subsequently changed her allegations. The applicant’s son had stated that his father had not been violent towards him. Neither the applicant nor her son had shown any traces of violence. 39. A.T. was taken to hospital in a state of intoxication. In the night he left the hospital and went to an amusement arcade. 40. While he was walking along the street he was arrested by the police for an identity check at 2.25 a.m. 41. The police report shows that A.T. was in a state of intoxication and had difficulty keeping his balance and that the police had let him go after stopping and fining him. 42. At 5 a.m. A.T. entered the family flat armed with a 12 cm kitchen knife with the intention of assaulting the applicant. The applicant’s son attempted to stop him and was stabbed three times. He died of his wounds. The applicant tried to escape but A.T. succeeded in catching up with her in the street, where he stabbed her several times in the chest. 43. On 1 October 2015 A.T. was convicted by the magistrate’s court of inflicting grievous bodily harm on the applicant, on account of the injuries he had inflicted on her during the incident in August 2012, and sentenced to a fine of EUR 2,000. 44. On an unspecified date in November 2013 the investigation into acts of ill-treatment was reopened. 45. A.T. asked to be tried in accordance with the summary procedure (giudizio abbreviato). 46. On 8 January 2015 A.T. was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Udine preliminary hearings judge for the murder of his son and the attempted murder of his wife and for the offences of ill-treatment of his wife and daughter and unauthorised possession of a prohibited weapon. He was also ordered to pay the applicant, who had applied to join the proceedings as a civil party, EUR 400,000 in damages. 47. With regard to the ill-treatment, the preliminary hearings judge, after hearing witnesses and the applicant’s daughter, considered that the applicant and her children had been living in a climate of violence. He found that A.T. had been habitually violent and held that, apart from the daily harassment suffered by the applicant, there had been four violent episodes. He added that A.T., at his trial, had confessed to experiencing feelings of hatred towards his wife. According to the preliminary hearings judge, the events of 25 November 2013 were the consequence of an attempt by the applicant to get away from A.T. 48. On 22 May 2015 A.T. appealed against the judgment. It can be seen from the file that in a judgment of 26 February 2016 the judgment was upheld by the Court of Appeal. However, neither of the parties annexed the judgment to their observations.