10 M.C. v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT D. The expert opinion submitted by the applicant 69. In June 2001 the applicant submitted a written opinion by two Bulgarian experts, Dr Svetlozar Vasilev, a psychiatrist, and Mr Valeri Ivanov, a psychologist, who had been asked by the applicant's lawyer to comment on the case. 70. The experts stated, with reference to scientific publications in several countries, that two patterns of response by rape victims to their attacker were known: violent physical resistance and “frozen fright” (also known as “traumatic psychological infantilism syndrome”). The latter was explained by the fact that any experience-based model of behaviour was inadequate when the victim was faced with the inevitability of rape. As a result the victim, terrorised, often adopted a passive-response model of submission, characteristic of childhood, or sought a psychological dissociation from the event, as if it were not happening to her. 71. The experts stated that all the scientific publications they had studied indicated that the “frozen-fright pattern” prevailed. Further, they had conducted their own research for the purposes of their written opinion in the present case. They had analysed all the cases of young women aged 14 to 20 who had contacted two specialised treatment programmes for victims of violence in Bulgaria during the period from 1996 to 2001, declaring that they had been raped. Cases that were too different from that of the applicant had been excluded. As a result, twenty-five cases had been identified, in twenty-four of which the victim had not resisted violently, but had reacted with passive submission. II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE 72. By Article 151 § 1 of the Criminal Code, sexual intercourse with a person under 14 years of age is a punishable offence (statutory rape). Consent is not a valid defence in such cases. 73. Consent is likewise irrelevant where the victim is more than 14 years old, but did not “understand the essence and meaning of the occurrence” (Article 151 § 2 of the Code). That provision has been applied in cases where the victim did not grasp the meaning of the events owing to a mental disorder (see judgment no. 568 of 18 August 1973, case no. 540/73, Supreme Court-I). 74. Article 152 § 1 of the Criminal Code defines rape as: “sexual intercourse with a woman (1) incapable of defending herself, where she did not consent; (2) who was compelled by the use of force or threats; (3) who was brought to a state of helplessness by the perpetrator.”