Ex-Premier League referee David Coote has admitted to making an indecent image of a child, a Category A offence – which is the most serious type of crime under UK law.
The 43-year-old man from Nottinghamshire changed his plea from denial to guilty at a Crown Court hearing on Tuesday after he had initially denied the charge in September. The image of the 15-year-old child, which was found on a hard drive at Coote’s home, was last accessed on January 2, 2020.
Judge Nirmal Shant KC said that Coote’s kind of offence was serious and warned him that a jail sentence was probable at his next court appearance for giving an account on December 11.Coote is on the sex offenders’ register and, under the terms of his bail, he is not allowed to have unsupervised contact with children or stay at an address where a child is present.
The Premier League officiating body parted ways with the former referee after a separate incident in which he made derogatory remarks about Liverpool and Jürgen Klopp. UEFA also prohibited him from refereeing in European competitions because “he breached the fundamental rules of good manners”.According to the Protection of Children Act 1978, Coote is liable to a maximum of ten years in prison, or five if it is only proven that he downloaded the image.
