{"id":22154,"date":"2026-01-08T14:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/former-epl-referee-gets-suspended-sentence-for-indecent-image-charge\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:13","slug":"former-epl-referee-gets-suspended-sentence-for-indecent-image-charge","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/former-epl-referee-gets-suspended-sentence-for-indecent-image-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Former EPL referee gets suspended sentence for indecent image charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Former Premier League soccer referee David Coote was on Thursday given a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of making an indecent image of a child.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Coote, 43, was sacked last year by PGMOL, the English soccer referees\u2019 body, after a video circulated on social media of him making derogatory comments about former Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>That incident sparked further investigations which led to Coote\u2019s electronic devices being seized by police in February 2025, prosecutor Jeremy Janes told Nottingham Crown Court.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Janes said Coote had in January 2020 downloaded a single Category A video, the most serious kind, which showed a 15-year-old boy dressed in school uniform performing a sex act.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The charge of making an indecent image relates to downloading, sharing and saving material and Janes said there was no suggestion Coote was involved in the making of the video.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Coote pleaded not guilty at his first court appearance in September but changed his plea to guilty the following month.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>His lawyer Laura Jane Miller said Coote had been taking cocaine while struggling with his mental health at the time of the offence and was \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cHe has lost his career and he has lost his reputation and those have been lost in the midst of \u2026 intense media scrutiny,\u201d she said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Judge Nirmal Shant, however, said: \u201cSome might say he has brought it on himself.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The judge told Coote: \u201cYou have had a spectacular fall from grace.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Shant imposed a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered Coote to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22155,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-22154","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Coote, 43, was sacked last year by PGMOL.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Coote, 43, was sacked last year by PGMOL.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25551,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22154\/revisions\/25551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}