28 BOUYID v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT there were major shortcomings in the investigation (see paragraphs 124-34 below), it is impossible to conclude that the officers’ statements were accurate from the mere fact that the investigation failed to provide any evidence to the contrary. 97. As to the hypothesis mentioned by the Government at the hearing to the effect that the applicants had slapped their own faces in order to make a case against the police (see paragraph 68 above), the Court notes that there is no evidence to corroborate it. Furthermore, having regard to the evidence produced by the parties, the hypothesis in question would not appear to have been mentioned in the domestic courts. 98. In the light of the foregoing the Court deems it sufficiently established that the erythema described in the certificates produced by the applicants occurred while they were under police control in the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode station. It also notes that the Government failed to produce any evidence likely to cast doubt on the applicants’ submissions to the effect that the erythema had resulted from a slap inflicted by a police officer. The Court therefore considers that fact proven. 99. It remains to be determined whether the applicants are justified in claiming that the treatment of which they complain was in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. (ii) Classification of the treatment inflicted on the applicants 100. As the Court has pointed out previously (see paragraph 88 above), where an individual is deprived of his or her liberty or, more generally, is confronted with law-enforcement officers, any recourse to physical force which has not been made strictly necessary by the person’s conduct diminishes human dignity and is in principle an infringement of the right set forth in Article 3 of the Convention. 101. The Court emphasises that the words “in principle” cannot be taken to mean that there might be situations in which such a finding of a violation is not called for, because the above-mentioned severity threshold (see paragraphs 86-87 above) has not been attained. Any interference with human dignity strikes at the very essence of the Convention (see paragraph 89 above). For that reason any conduct by law-enforcement officers vis-à-vis an individual which diminishes human dignity constitutes a violation of Article 3 of the Convention. That applies in particular to their use of physical force against an individual where it is not made strictly necessary by his conduct, whatever the impact on the person in question. 102. In the present case the Government did not claim that the slaps of which the two applicants complained had corresponded to recourse to physical force which had been made strictly necessary by their conduct; they simply denied that any slaps had ever been administered. In fact, it appears from the case file that each slap was an impulsive act in response to an attitude perceived as disrespectful, which is certainly insufficient to