How do you assess guilt when a mistake kills a child? The Starnberg District Court now had to answer this question in the case of the death of a 13-year-old during rowing training.
Starnberg – “That was a mistake – and this mistake cost Leo his life.” This sentence by judge Karin Beuting sums up the process surrounding the death of a 13-year-old during rowing training.
The trial ended on Monday with fines for the two coaches accused. Because they did not adequately supervise the boy on Lake Starnberg in April 2015 and he drowned away from the group, the Starnberg District Court sentenced the two men to 90 daily rates of 30 euros each.
“We don’t know much,” Beuting said in her reasoning for the judgment. The taking of evidence had by far not been able to clarify all the processes on the day of the accident. In the end, however, the allegation remains that the two coaches did not adequately supervise the 13-year-old, the judge found. There was an increased risk due to various circumstances, she said in the direction of the defendants. “What I am chalking at you is that, despite this increased risk, no one looked for such a long time.”
The 13-year-old was actually supposed to train away from the group on the bank. But for some unexplained reason he went out onto the lake, got into the water and drowned in the cold lake. Meanwhile, the trainers looked after other students in other parts of the lake. Of course, you could not look every second, but the period in which the accident happened was too long, said the judge.
Such a mistake that you don’t think about the consequences could in principle happen to anyone, said Beuting. But the consequences are irreparable. In making her decision, she also took into account that six years had passed between the accident and the judgment. That also incriminated the defendants. With a quicker judgment, Beuting would have also been imprisonment in the room.
In addition, the judge credited the men for their confession and regret, as well as their voluntary work, and took into account payments already made by the accused to charitable organizations of around 10,000 and 35,000 euros in the daily rates. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The defense had previously called for the proceedings to be suspended or for their clients to be acquitted. The background to the application for discontinuation was the long way to the trial: Originally, the indictment was brought to the Munich Regional Court, which referred to the local court. There the trial against monetary restrictions was discontinued. The public prosecutor’s office and the accessory prosecution filed a complaint, the regional court overturned the setting and sent the proceedings back to Starnberg.
The public prosecutor’s office had demanded a fine of 50 or 70 daily rates, but set them significantly higher at 500 and 100 euros. The secondary prosecution had not requested a specific sentence, but rejected the proposal of the public prosecutor’s office as being too low.
The mother of the 13-year-old had made serious accusations against the accused on Monday: “In our eyes you both have Leo on your conscience,” said the co-plaintiff on Monday in a low, choked voice. “We entrusted our son to them,” she emphasized. The men had a duty to organize the training in such a way that there was no risk. Instead, they would have left the 13-year-old alone in dangerous conditions.
The attorney for the accessory prosecution had also dealt with being left alone in her plea. The 13-year-old was all alone when he got into the water and noticed how cold and deadly it was and during the “desperate struggle to get back into the boat,” she said. “And he was alone, high court, when he finally had to give up and drowned.” Dpa
