Ex-Premier League referee David Coote avoids prison over child abuse image

David Coote has been avoided prison after pleading guilty to making an indecent image of a child.

The former Premier League referee was handed a nine-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday.

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Coote was charged with the Category A offence in August, which relates to a video file recovered by police in February 2025.

Category A is the most serious of the categories and the charge relates to acts such as downloading, sharing and saving material.

It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in custody.

He had pleaded guilty to making an indecent video of a 15-year-old boy in January 2020.

Following his charge in February of last year, Coote pleaded guilty to the offence at a hearing at Nottingham Crown Court in October.

On Thursday, Coote re-appeared at Nottingham Crown Court, where it was confirmed that he had avoided jail for the offence.

He was, however, given a sexual harm prevention order lasting 10 years.

Coote was arrested when a ‘Category A moving image’ was discovered on a Dell laptop, last accessed on January 2, 2020.

He had been due to be sentenced on December 11, 2025 but his barrister was unable to attend in person, meaning it got delayed by a month.

But he returned to court for his sentencing on Thursday, where he learned of his fate.

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Addressing Coote ahead of sentencing him, Judge Nirmal Shant said: “David Coote, you have had a spectacular fall from grace.”

She told him the starting point for such an offence is one year imprisonment, with the range between 26 weeks and three years.

Judge Shant added: “You came to the attention of police following an investigation into your conduct while being employed as a professional referee.

“You had been filmed making comments [about] the then Liverpool Football Club manager. The present allegations are unrelated to that but they did lead to the police coming to your home in February last year.

“They found a laptop and a hard drive [which had] been connected to the laptop on 2 January.

“At the time you told police they would find cocaine that you had for your personal use – you have been cautioned for that.”

She told Coote this kind of offence involves “a real child being abused with all the damage that flows from it”.

News of Coote’s sentencing comes after he was sacked by the PGMOL in 2024 and handed a UEFA ban following unrelated damaging videos and messages posted online.

He was then suspended and charged by the FA in June earlier this year.

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