ĐORĐEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT 31 2. The Court’s assessment (a) The applicability of Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the Convention to the circumstances of the present case (i) In respect of the first applicant 90. The Court takes note of repeated incidents of violent behaviour towards the first applicant. The facts in issue concern frequent episodes of harassment in the period between 31 July 2008 and February 2011, amounting to about two and half years. The incidents concerned both verbal and physical harassment, including violent acts such as burning the first applicant’s hands with cigarettes, pushing him against an iron fence and hitting him with a ball. In view of the fact that all the incidents in the present case concerned a series of acts by a group of children and occurred over a prolonged period of time, the Court will examine them as a continuing situation. 91. The Court notes further that the incidents of harassment of the first applicant by children living in his neighbourhood and children attending a nearby primary school are well documented by, inter alia, police reports and medical reports. The latter show the adverse impact that these incidents have had on his physical and mental health. The reports concerning the first applicant indicate that he is suffering from serious mental disorders, but is a peaceful and benign individual who cannot and does not know how to defend himself from his abusers. Owing to the continued harassment against him, he has had to undergo psychotherapy, has often been scared and is under stress. His removal from the situation of harassment was recommended. 92. The first applicant made credible assertions that over a prolonged period of time he had been exposed to threats to his physical and mental integrity and had actually been harassed or attacked on a number of occasions. 93. In view of these facts, the Court considers that the State authorities had a positive obligation to protect the first applicant from the violent behaviour of the children involved. This obligation in the circumstances of the present case arises both under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. In the circumstances of the case the Court considers, however, that it suffices to analyse the first applicant’s complaints from the standpoint of Article 3 of the Convention only. 94. The Court reiterates that ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this minimum is relative: it depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the nature and context of the treatment, its duration, its physical and mental effects and, in some instances, the sex, age and state of health of the victim