Former Premier League referee David Coote has been sentenced for abusing a child’s image

Former Premier League referee David Coote has been given a suspended prison sentence after a child abuse video was found on his laptop.

The video, which showed a 15-year-old boy wearing a school uniform, was found on a device recovered by police in February last year.

Coote, of Woodhill, Collingham, Nottinghamshire, admitted a charge of making an indecent image of a child in relation to the Category A video, the most serious type, at Nottingham Crown Court in October.

The 43-year-old returned to the same court on Thursday and was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for two years. He was also given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

The court heard Coote’s hardware analysis showed his Dell laptop was connected to the hard drive and – meaning downloaded and displayed on the screen – a Class A motion picture, lasting two minutes and 11 seconds, on January 2, 2020.

Judge Nirmal Shant KC told Cote: “Those who commit this type of crime must realize that they are implicating a real child and this is causing them harm.”

The charge of making an indecent image of a child refers to activities such as downloading, sharing or saving images or videos that contain abuse.

The video was brought to the attention of police when the FA were investigating Coote, and a number of devices were seized and analyzed when he was arrested at his home, Nottingham Crown Court was told in September.

He admitted to the crime the following month, after initially pleading not guilty.

Defending Coote, Laura Miller said his actions on January 2, 2020 did not reflect who he was as a person, adding that he was going through an “internal struggle” after the relationship broke down.

She added that he faced a period of media scrutiny, and the judge replied: “Some might say that he brought this on himself.”

Ms Miller told the court it had been six years since the crime and Coote, who now worked in an administrative job, was trying to “rebuild his life step by step”.

“His life is a far cry from what it was at the height of his career, and he knows he will never get that back,” she said.

The court heard that Coote was also cautioned for possession of cocaine after police visited his home.

Addressing him before sentencing, Judge Chant told Coote that he had “suffered a stunning fall from grace”.

Cote was sacked in 2024 when comments made in a video about former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp in 2020 emerged.

In August last year, he was suspended for eight weeks by the FA over Klopp’s footage.

In addition, the former official was also banned by European Football Association (UEFA) until June 30 of this year after photos surfaced of him inhaling a white powder through a banknote while in Germany for Euro 2024.

Kott came out as gay in an interview with The Sun in January 2025, and said his lifelong struggle to hide his sexuality contributed to the conversation about Klopp.

In addition to the suspended prison sentence and sexual harm prevention order, Coote was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

The judge added: “If you breach this order in any way, and if there are any other offenses – particularly sexual offenses – you will be liable to be sent back to court.”

Additional reporting by PA media