2 ĐORĐEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT THE FACTS I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 5. The applicants were born in 1977 and 1956 respectively and live in Zagreb. 6. The first applicant is a person divested of legal capacity owing to his mental and physical retardation. He goes to a workshop for adults at the V.B. primary school in Zagreb for twelve hours a week. He is taken care of by his mother, the second applicant. The medical documentation of 16 June 2008 submitted in respect of the first applicant describes his health as follows: “... in his very early childhood he suffered from purulent meningitis, which resulted in permanent consequences and epilepsy. He is retarded in his mental and physical development and is under the constant supervision of a neurologist and psychiatrist. Owing to hydrocephalus he has had a Pudenz valve [a type of cerebrospinal fluid shunt] implanted. ... his eyesight is very poor ... and he is dependent on his mother as regards feeding, dressing, personal hygiene and moving about. His spine is mobile but painful in the lower region. ... he suffers from severe foot deformation, ... has difficulty walking; walking on his toes and heels is not possible. Mentally he is emotionally distant, fearful and he has a poor vocabulary. ...” 7. The applicants live in a ground-floor flat in a block of flats in Špansko, a part of Zagreb. The A.K. primary school is nearby in their neighbourhood. 8. It appears that the applicants were subjected to harassment between July 2008 and February 2011. They alleged that pupils from the A.K. primary school, all minors, frequently harassed them, and in particular the first applicant, at all times of the day, especially when the pupils returned home from school in groups and in the late afternoon and evening when they gathered without parental supervision on and around a wooden bench in front of the balcony of the applicants’ flat. The harassment, in their submission, was motivated by the first applicant’s health and both applicants’ Serbian origin. A larger group of children, also minors, came daily to a park in front of the applicants’ flat, shouted obscenities at the first applicant, called him names and wrote insulting messages on the pavement. The children often rang the applicants’ bell, asking when the first applicant was going out. They often spat at him. 9. A police report of 31 July 2008 shows that the second applicant called the police at 9.12 p.m. and complained that unknown young persons were harassing her son and had smashed some objects on her balcony. The police arrived at the applicants’ home at 9.30 p.m. and the second applicant told them that at about 6 p.m. she and the first applicant had left the flat and that when they had returned at about 9 p.m. she had found the balcony ruined