Former Premier League referee David Coote has been given a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to making an indecent moving image of a child. The 43-year-old appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday, where Judge Shant described his fall from grace as “spectacular”.
Coote was found to have a category A video—the most serious classification—of a 15-year-old schoolboy on his laptop. The two-minute, 11-second clip showed the boy undressing and performing sexual acts. The court heard that Coote had extracted the video from a hard drive to his laptop on 2 January 2020.
In addition to a suspended sentence, Coote was issued a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, restricting his contact with children and where he can live. He must also complete 150 hours of unpaid work. Judge Shant told him: “Those who commit this sort of offence must understand that they involve real children being abused, with all the consequent damage that comes from it.”
Coote was sacked by Professional Game Match Officials Limited in December 2024 after an unrelated video emerged in which he made derogatory comments about then-Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp. That video led to wider media scrutiny, and police subsequently seized and analysed his devices in February 2025.
His defence lawyer, Laura Jane Miller, said Coote was dealing with personal and mental health difficulties at the time and was “deeply ashamed by his actions”. She argued for a suspended sentence to aid rehabilitation and avoid a burden on the public purse.
