Disgraced Premier League referee David Coote, who pleaded guilty to making an indecent image of a child, will be sentenced next year.
The 43-year-old former Premier League official was due to be sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court this morning.
Coote, from Newark, had previously admitted making one indecent image of a child of ‘category A’ on January 2, 2020.
Category A is the most serious of the categories, and the charge relates to acts such as downloading, sharing, and saving material. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in custody.
However, Coote’s barrister could not appear in person, and his client will now have to wait until January 8 to be sentenced.
Following his guilty plea in October, Coote was made subject to the notification requirements of the Sex Offender’s Register. How long he will be on the Register for will depend on his sentence.
Following Coote’s plea, Judge Nirmal Shant KC warned him that he may face custody: ‘As far as you are concerned you have pleaded guilty to a serious matter. Whether custody or not will be decided when all the information is before the court.
‘You mustn’t go away with impression that this automatically means a non-custodial sentence – it doesn’t.’
Coote is on conditional bail. He is not permitted to have contact with a child under the age of 18 or to reside at an address where persons under 18 reside.
He has also been made the subject of a s£xual harm prevention order, which restricts his activities.
The matter initially came to the police’s attention following the FA’s investigation into Coote, which saw mobile phones had been examined by a third party. The Crown Prosecution said that two conversations found on the device ‘appeared to indicate Mr Coote had a sexual interest in children’.
An investigation was launched, and Coote was subsequently arrested at his home address. A PGMOL-registered Dell laptop was subsequently seized, and a Category A video, featuring moving image of a child aged 15, was found and accessed on the date referenced in the charge.
Coote, a top-flight and international mainstay, was sacked last December after a video emerged of him making disparaging remarks about ex-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.
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