Assault on ward doctor justifies pre-trial detention

The resistance to a public official in a hospital and the aggravated threat during the assault on medical personnel are offences that undermine the safety and proper performance of the functions of those acting in the public interest. And they justify the application of thepersonal precautionary measure because any subsequent findings of medical liability profiles also entail the risk of reiteration or aggravation of the offence. The Court of Cassation - sentence 29684 of 25 August - rejected the appeal by one of the family members who had assailed the medical staff for the death of their joint patient, hospitalised months earlier for road traffic injuries, an assault that occurred in the operating theatre after the surgery that had been performed to save her life.

The Court endorsed the decision of the Court that had applied the precautionary measure of house arrest with electronic bracelet, after having annulled the contrary order of the Judge for Preliminary Investigations. The Gip, in fact, while recognising the existence of serious criminal evidence, had rejected the public prosecutor's request for the application of precautionary measures to the applicant and his family members.

In the grounds of the judgement, the Supreme Court stated that the precautionary measure was ordered by the Court on the basis of the serious circumstantial picture and the existence of the danger ofrepetition of the offences and the danger of evidence pollution. The measure was justified because the action orchestrated by the family unit, together with the appellant's conduct, denoted the marked stubbornness and incapacity for self-control of the protagonists of the affair.

According to the Supreme Court, the Court had already highlighted in its decision how the attack had been 'prepared' by calling numerous people (at least 25), in itself a form of intimidation, and the appellant had 'distinguished himself in the beating, inciting the co-defendants to join the violence against the doctors', and had hit them several times, even on the head, with kicks and punches. Not only that, according to the Court of Cassation, the Court's decision focused on the dangerousness of all the suspects: for their previous criminal record, for their total disregard of the authority's prescriptions and orders, and for the fact that the presence of several uniformed police officers had not deterred their aggressive and intimidating actions.