Former Premier League referee David Coote pleads guilty to making indecent image of a child
Former Premier League referee David Coote pleaded guilty to creating an indecent image of a child at Nottingham Crown Court.
The former official appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday in relation to an allegation relating to a category A video – the most serious type – seized by officers in February.
The 43-year-old, wearing a navy blue suit and black tie, spoke only to confirm his name and enter his defense during the hearing before Judge Nirmal Shant KC.
The former referee, of Woodhill Road in Collingham, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, was granted conditional bail by Judge Shant and told he must appear in court again on December 11.
The judge told Coote, who stood in the dock with his hands clasped in front of him, that he had ordered a pre-sentence report to be prepared before he was sentenced.
“You have pleaded guilty to a serious matter. Whether this will mean detention or not will be decided when all the information reaches the court, so I requested a pre-sentence report.”
When Coote was arrested at his home a number of devices were seized and analyzed and a category A video was found.
Coote, who has previously pleaded not guilty to the charges, was told his bail conditions were that he must not have unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18 and that he must not live at the same address with anyone under that age.
The accusation of creating an indecent image of a child refers to activities such as downloading, sharing or recording abusive photos or videos.
The claim relates to a video recovered by Nottinghamshire Police officers in February, before Coote was charged on 12 August.
Coote was sacked by Professional Game Match Authors Limited in December after video emerged of comments he made about former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp in 2020.
In August this year, Klopp was sentenced to an eight-week suspension by the Football Association due to his images.
In January, Coote came out as gay in an interview with The Sun, saying his lifelong struggle to hide his sexuality had contributed to the rumor about Klopp.
