EFL referee Gareth Viccars jailed for 13 years for sex offences against underage girls

Gareth Viccars, 47, officiated in the third and fourth tiers of English football, including taking reserve assistant duties for play-off semi-finals.

But while he was taking charge of football games, he orchestrated a wave of sexual offences against teenage girls across the country - and there are fears that many victims may not yet have come forward. He has been jailed for more than 13 years after admitting 16 sexual offence charges.

Detectives suspect there could be hundreds of girls who Viccars committed offences against, due to his random and widespread messaging.

The referee had been using Snapchat to speak to teenage girls, randomly adding the profiles of girls who were suggested to him by the ‘mutual friends’ feature.

He would add a profile, and then follow with a message saying, "sorry I think I have added the wrong person".

After sparking a conversation, Viccars would then build trust with the girls by pretending that he was a teacher, “someone who would usually have their best interests at heart”, according to the Metropolitan Police.

So far there have been victim-survivors identified in Essex, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

In November 2024, the Met received a report that Viccars had committed sexual offences against a girl over a period of three years, beginning when she was 15 years old.

Viccars and the girl had begun messaging on Snapchat in November 2021. After messaging for four days, Viccars suggested that they meet up, and had driven to meet her in Romford.

Once alone with the victim, he began to engage in sexual activity with the girl before pressuring her on later occasions into further sexual activity by saying that they were in a relationship.

In the Cambridgeshire case, Viccars started talking to one of the girls on Snapchat and then met up with her in a supermarket car park in 2023. Viccars sexually assaulted the girl in his Mercedes and the victim ran away but took note of the registration plate.

They spoke on Snapchat again and Viccars told the victim what he liked to do sexually. He met up with the girl a second time near a park a few days later and he drove her to a car park where he sexually assaulted her again. This lasted about 20 minutes before Viccars drove the victim back to the park and dropped her off before she walked home. The victim’s school reported the sexual assaults to police in June 2024.

Last week at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London Viccars, of Hunter Drive, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, was jailed for 13 years and six months, having pleaded guilty to six counts of penetrative sexual activity with a child, two counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of inciting/causing a child under 16 to engage in a sexual act, and one count each of engaging in sexual communications with a child and engaging in sexual activity with a child.

Viccars was also handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life and given restraining orders.

In her victim personal statement, the Cambridgeshire victim said she suffered from “nightmares and flashbacks”, it had affected her education and “broke her trust in adults.”

She also said she felt “guilty”, “isolated” and had lost her self-esteem as well as feeling like she was never going to find happiness in her life.

Det Con James Collinwood, who investigated the Cambridgeshire offences, said: “Viccars was a sexual predator who preyed on three vulnerable teenage girls for his own personal gratification. I would like to commend all three victims for coming forward as their bravery and courage throughout the whole process has ultimately led to Viccars being put in prison for a long time.”

Det Con Collingwood praised the girl for having the “presence of mind” to take the registration plate of Viccars’ car, which he said was “a huge help with the investigation”

Gareth Viccars’ charges

• Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child
• Sexual activity with a child on at least 9 occasions
• Sexual activity with a child
• Engaging in sexual communication with a child
• Meeting a child following sexual grooming
• 4x Sexual activity with a child
• Engaging in sexual communication with a child
• 3x Sexual activity with a child
• 2x Causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity
• Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child