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 by gross negligence, an offence that carries a maximum prison term of three years.
The lengthy one-day hearing at a court in Innsbruck, western Austria, 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.
Thomas P, a chef from Salzburg, had pleaded not guilty and told the court he was “endlessly sorry” for his girlfriend’s death. His lawyer described the death of the 33-year-old woman as a “tragic accident”.
The court heard that after a gruelling day of climbing in freezing conditions in January 2025 , 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 said the situation had been “very stressful”.
He said he had left Kerstin G 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. When her body was later recovered, the items were found in her rucksack.
Webcam footage shows Thomas P with a torch descending from the peak in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025. Photograph: www.foto-webcam.eu
Giving evidence, a police officer on duty that night, who had called Thomas P on his mobile at 12.35am, after a helicopter had set off to monitor the couple two hours earlier amid concerns for their safety, said the defendant had told him: “We don’t need anything … everything’s fine”.
The officer had advised Thomas P that the couple should keep moving. The discussion had ended abruptly. The officer attempted to call him twice more, and to find out if the pair needed help, and sent text messages, but had received no reply. Later, conditions became too dangerous for the helicopter to attempt a rescue.
The prosecutor, Johann Frischmann, accused the defendant of failing to live up to his “de facto” role as leader of the tour, due to him being the more experienced climber.
One expert witness referred to the defendant’s social media posts, including details of his previous feats, as one of the pieces of evidence that Thomas P was a better mountaineer than his girlfriend.
The mistakes made, the court heard, included failing to recognise that Kerstin G was wearing the wrong type of footwear for the terrain, neglecting to adequately take into account the weather conditions for that time of year, and failing to turn back earlier given the conditions.
Prosecutors based key parts of their accusations on an expert report, which analysed the data from both climbers’ smart watches, which documented a clear decline in their physical performances. This was evident even before the police helicopter had flown over at about 10pm. The defendant had failed to call emergency services in time and reacted too late to rescue attempts, they said.
The court was filled with journalists, local people and representatives of mountain emergency response organisations from Austria and elsewhere in Europe.
A former girlfriend, called as a witness, testified that she had also climbed the Großglockner with Thomas P in 2023. She said he had abandoned her on the route at night after her head torch ran out of battery, leaving her distressed. “So that was the last mountain expedition we undertook together,” she said.
The court was shown webcam footage of Thomas P and Kerstin G ascending the mountain, as well as Thomas P descending alone. The beam of his torch lit up bright against the snowy mountainside.
Judge Hofer, presiding, an experienced mountaineer who is active as a mountain and air rescuer (although he emphasised that had “no bearing on the case”) 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, accepting that the defendant had gone to fetch help.
However, he said that because Thomas P was “galaxies” more proficient as a mountaineer than his girlfriend, and because she had placed herself in his care, he bore responsibility for her death.
The told Thomas P that with his alpine experience he should have recognised that his girlfriend’s abilities “were far from sufficient”.
Hofer questioned Thomas P in detail as to why he had decided to leave Kerstin G just below the summit. Thomas P said he had himself been suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion at that time, suggesting an impairment in his ability to judge the situation.
He told the court he had secured his girlfriend to a rock with a sling. He had intended to lie down next to her, but said she had screamed at him: “Go now, go!” He said in doing so she had “saved my life”.
Hofer said he found this version of events “hard to believe”. The court was then shown a photograph of Kerstin G as she was found by rescue workers the following day, hanging from a rock face, her feet dangling, her crampons loosened. The court heard she had probably fallen.
A forensic doctor, who had examined Kerstin G after her death, told the court she had died of hypothermia, listing the typical physical signs associated with that. The doctor added that she had found evidence that the woman was suffering from viral pneumonia and had taken ibuprofen. She said it was hard to assess whether this may have affected her performance and led to a sudden and unexpected decline in her physical state.
Kurt Jelinek, the lawyer acting for Thomas P, rejected the premise that his client had been the more experienced climber, and therefore the “de facto” leader, saying he had no mountaineering qualification but rather had garnered his knowledge from videos and others sources and that the couple had acted “on a level playing field”.
Kerstin G’s mother, Gertrud G, agreed, saying her daughter “would not have gone along blindly” with her boyfriend. Kerstin G was repeatedly described to the court as having been in excellent physical health and strong-willed. The defendant referred to other “challenging climbs” they had undertaken together, including the south face of the Dachstein (the Steinerweg) and the Watzmann east face, known as the Salzburger Weg.
Jelinek also took issue with what he referred to as Thomas P’s “trial by media” before the court case, saying he had “already suffered enough” having lost his “beloved girlfriend”.
Hofer said he had taken all this into account in his verdict, and emphasised he had not been influenced by the media coverage.
The defendant asked the court for time to consider his options. It is believed he may appeal. As a result, the verdict is not yet legally binding.
