A FORMER assistant referee in football’s Premier League has denied befriending underage teenage boys and offering to pay one of them for sex.

Steven Dorr, aged 40, of Riverview Close, off Hallow Road, Worcester, denied all four charges when he appeared at Worcester Magistrates Court.

Dorr, a former chairman of Worcester Referees Society and a former committee member for Old Elizabethans cricket club, is charged with breaching a previous Sexual Offences Prevention Order banning him from having contact with children under 17.

The order was imposed in January 2009 when Dorr admitted 10 counts of downloading child pornography.

He was given a three-year community order, told to sign the sex offenders’ register and banned from working with or associating with children.

The first charge is that between December 1 last year and December 31 last year he associated with and attempted to befriend, without reasonable excuse, someone under the age of 17 which he is prohibited from doing under the terms of a sexual offences prevention order made by Worcester Crown Court on January 13 last year.

The second charge was that he had contact with a person under the age of 17, without reasonable excuse, between Saturday, February 13, and Monday, February 15, again in contravention of the crown court order.

The third charge is that he offered to pay a 15-year-old boy to participate in sexual activity on Sunday, February 14, which is against the law under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

The fourth charge is that he went on holiday with a person under the age of 17 without reasonable excuse and without obtaining priory authorisation in contravention of the crown court order.

Dorr was released on conditional bail until Tuesday, December 7, when his case will be formally committed to the crown court.