An amateur mountaineer has been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the death of his girlfriend, whom he left behind on Austria’s highest peak after they got into difficulty on their climb. Thomas P, 37, was handed a five-month suspended sentence and fined €9,400 (£8,200) for causing the death of Kerstin G in January 2025.
The one-day hearing at a court in Innsbruck drew worldwide attention from the mountaineering community in an extremely rare case of a prosecution over a climbing incident. Experts say the ruling sets a precedent that could influence international standards for liability in mountain sports.
The court heard that after a gruelling day of climbing in freezing conditions, during which the pair had fallen well behind schedule, Kerstin G was exhausted, suffering from hypothermia and lacked the strength to continue. They were about 50 metres below the summit of the Großglockner mountain when night fell. Thomas P left her on a ridge exposed to strong winds when he went to seek help. He told the court he could not explain why he had failed to wrap her in the emergency blanket she was carrying or place her in a bivouac bag.
Giving evidence, a police officer who had called Thomas P on his mobile at 12.35am, after a helicopter had set off to monitor the couple, said the defendant had told him: 'We don’t need anything … everything’s fine'. The officer had advised the couple to keep moving, but the discussion ended abruptly. Later, conditions became too dangerous for the helicopter to attempt a rescue.
The prosecutor accused the defendant of failing to live up to his role as leader of the tour, due to him being the more experienced climber. Mistakes included failing to recognise that Kerstin G was wearing the wrong type of footwear, neglecting to adequately take into account the weather conditions, and failing to turn back earlier. A former girlfriend testified that Thomas P had also abandoned her on the same mountain in 2023 after her head torch ran out of battery.
Judge Hofer, an experienced mountaineer, ruled that the defendant had been negligent in failing to recognise that Kerstin G would be unable to complete the climb well before the couple ran into difficulty. 'I do not see you as a murderer. I do not see you as cold-hearted,' he told Thomas P while delivering the verdict.
