Ivanov certainly beat the child, but... he is not guilty.

      Let us recall that on May 4, 2023, a 9-year-old boy was brutally beaten in front of passersby as he was returning home from school with classmates. On October Avenue, opposite the Agricultural Academy, a strong and large man ran up to Pavlik (name changed), and after knocking him to the asphalt, began to strike him.

      According to witnesses, the attacker was enraged, and it seemed he intended to beat the child to death. He shouted so threateningly that the boy wet himself out of fear. The beating only stopped when passersby rushed at the "furious man" and pulled him away from the schoolchild.

      Pavlik’s mother (her husband was on SVO), who was sent on leave until the end of the school year, immediately filed a police report. But in July, she clearly realized that authorities not only protected Andrey Ivanov without planning to initiate a criminal case against him but also blamed her 9-year-old son for everything. The only reason he avoided detention was his underage status. According to police, the second-grader was blamed for all sins: supposedly, it was not he but the “Iskoshvsky boss” who soiled his pants from shock, and after the beating, the assailant "shined flashlights all over his body."

      By the way, in a countersuit, Ivanov explained his behavior by stating that Pavlik pushed his child and had previously harassed the twin boys. This, apparently, was enough for the police to declare the second-grader guilty and place him on preventive registration at the Juvenile Affairs Department. Likely, there were no charges against the “Iskoshvsky leader,” since he acted... “not out of hooligan motives.”

      Also, probably to make the lives of the 9-year-old offender’s parents, who is unlikely to reach the man’s waist in height, seem less sweet, Ivanov filed complaints about “improper parenting” by a Rosguard officer and deemed her “inappropriate for continued employment in law enforcement.” However, the Service Commission and inspections established both “proper upbringing” and “the appropriateness of her continued service.”

      The court upheld Pavlik’s parents’ first claim, effectively requiring the police department to open a case against Ivanov the elder. But the police appealed the ruling in appellate court, explaining their refusal to act by stating that Ivanov’s actions lacked hooligan motive and that the assault on the child was committed “out of personal enmity.”

      The court refused to satisfy the second claim of the boy’s parents, even after reviewing footage from a street camera showing clearly that Pavlik did not hit the twins. They even kept the child classified as having committed an administrative offense, apparently believing that the shock of seeing himself beaten on October Avenue would be enough to dissuade him in the juvenile affairs office.

      However, the decision of the lower court was overturned on appeal in October 2024, when the boy was taken off the registry. In response, the police department appealed all the way to cassation.

      In late December of last year, the parents’ third claim for moral damages was satisfied.

      Remembering the offense

      During the court proceedings on August 4, Anastasia Yershova did not deny or question the fact of Pavlik’s beating, nor did she philosophize about the defendant’s ignorance of the court session, where “he was unable to defend himself”: according to her appeal, she lives not at her registered address—she did not receive any letters and was apparently on a business trip to China—and she stated that she personally “discovered” a separate reason to restore Andrey Alexandrovich’s “honest face and name.”

      It turned out that Anastasia Aleksandrovna found discrepancies in two texts, which by definition should be identical: in the judge Hasnudinov’s final decision read aloud in the courtroom, and in the document received by Andrey Ivanov, who had recently been “guilty of an administrative offense from April to August.” She explained that she discovered mismatched dates, the secretary’s name, and inconsistencies in the content of the documents.

      Noting the “lack of documentary congruence,” the judge, probably, mentally handed Ivanov, whose statute of limitations had just expired, homemade angel wings. Completely unconcerned about the reason for the discrepancies, perhaps knowing that Judge Sergey Hasnudinov, whose decision she “did not confirm,” was on vacation.

      She probably had no plans to ask the assistant judge or secretary about the gross violations of judicial document handling, “Your Honor Yershova.” However, the secretariat of the 55th judicial district, where the mother of the beaten boy turned to, could explain that “they think they slightly altered something there.” So, there is hope that the Investigative Committee, to which lawyer Tatiana Bazhina, representing the interests of the child and his parents, intends to appeal, will uncover the reasons for the “errors” in what might be a “judge’s dictation.”

      They will also clarify the rather strange situation: for example, when and how Judge Yershova received the existing court decision from businessman Ivanov’s hands to carefully compare it with Judge Hasnudinov’s decision from the case materials. By the way, Ivanov’s appeal does not mention this at all.

      Today, as Tatiana Bazhina says, there is hope for the cassation court, which is unlikely to threaten witnesses with criminal charges of “perjury.” And where the fact of publicly beating the child will be primary, even with the most innocent mask and white wings of the person who beat the boy—despite the “personal enmity” involved.