How strangled referee’s life was upended by Sunday League assault
new
Peter Williams is still struggling with PTSD and depression three years on from an incident that showcases the dangers officials face at grassroots level
Williams was strangled by Marks following a Sunday League game, leaving him with a swollen carotid artery, cuts and bruising
Sam Cunningham
Sunday March 22 2026, 2.15pm GMT, The Times
Peter Williams could never have imagined how drastically his life would change when he blew the whistle to start a football match three years ago.
A referee for 25 years, he was enjoying officiating an entertaining West Kent Sunday Football League game on a warm, sunny February day. At the Paddock Wood Memorial Ground, Dormansland Rockets went two goals ahead, then Insulators FC drew level before Dormansland struck a winner.
As the game grew heated, Williams booked three Insulators players for dissent, sending them to the sin-bin for ten minutes under grassroots football rules. He also had to speak to their assistant manager, Daniel Marks, on the touchline more than once.
After the match, while Williams was talking to a fan, Marks approached and threatened him. When Marks called him “a c***”, Williams showed him a red card.
What happened next was, Williams tells The Times, “the worst thing I could’ve done”.
“I turned my back on him, walked away, walked four, five, six steps, then I’m hit from behind. I described it to the police as like being hit with a body slam. I went forward; my neck went back. Now I’ve got an arm across my throat and I’m being strangled.
“My recollection is being hit in the face — he pulled his fist back and hit me. He’s then continued to hold me in the crook of his arm. I just didn’t know when he was going to stop applying the pressure. I didn’t know what would satisfy him.
“I’ve never been in that position before. And then it all goes . . . I lose consciousness. I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I wake up on the ground, face is in the grass, I’m in a crucifix position, my arms are out either side, legs are straight.”
That moment changed Williams’s life in ways that the 66-year-old is still trying to understand. It sent him on a dark, painful journey through trauma that continues today, even though a degree of closure came when Marks was sentenced for assault by battery at Maidstone magistrates’ court on March 5.
District Judge Claire Luxford found she could not be sure that Williams lost consciousness, but giving his victim impact statement in court, Williams said: “I have never felt as frightened, helpless, or close to death as I did during this assault.
“While I was being strangled from behind, I genuinely believed that I might be taking my last breath. The feeling of having another person deliberately restrict the oxygen to my brain, and render me unconscious, has left a permanent mark on me.”
Before the attack, he was calm, confident, easy-going. A 30-year career as a policeman had made him feel “bomb proof”, but “some of that has disappeared now,” he says.
Some remains, though, in the bravery he shows in sharing his story — a warning about the dangers grassroots referees face in the environment where many young officials take their first steps towards the Premier League. It is the real-world consequence of a culture in which referees are dissected by pundits in front of millions every weekend.
An FA report into grassroots discipline found there were 194 allegations of assault or attempted assault on match officials last season — roughly four every week over the course of the season, and a 104 per cent increase on the year before.
Marks was initially charged with non-fatal strangulation, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) later reduced the charge due to a lack of evidence. He was fined £1,125, ordered to pay Williams £1,100 compensation and handed a restraining order.
Marks, a father of one, was described in court by his lawyer as “a hard-working, family man. His behaviour on this day was entirely out of character”. In an earlier hearing, Marks denied punching or strangling Williams. He claimed he tripped over water bottles and fell into the referee, but the judge said this did not happen. He is now serving a lengthy ban from football.
Over time, Williams had PTSD diagnosed and suffered with mild anxiety and depression. He endures disturbed sleep, panic attacks, flashbacks and, as he said in court, “nightmares involving strangulation”. The swollen carotid artery, scratch marks on his neck, the burst blood vessels on his forehead and cut on his face all healed, but the psychological damage endured.
“[It is] like having frayed ends. It’s as if you wake up and the trauma of the incident is being spilled across the floor. And you can’t actually contain the spillage,” he says. “It has greatly occupied three years of my life that I didn’t need to have. I can’t get that back. I’m a changed person as a result of it.”
Williams still struggles with his mental health, years on from the incident
peter tarry for the times
Williams continues to see a therapist. Confrontation still triggers him, though there has been progress. “In the early days I wouldn’t be able to speak like this,” he says. “I’d be in floods of tears.”
He shares with The Times two tearful videos he recorded on the day of the attack and the day after. In one, he says that “humanity took a dent yesterday”. The ordeal has taken a toll on his family, too.
“Because it was always at the forefront of my mind, you’re almost dragging your family down,” he says. “Sometimes you internalise it and don’t want to share it because you know the impact that’s going to have on them. My wife and family members have had to live with my mental health issues and make adjustments for them, which I thank them for. They are the hidden victims.”
The day before a court appearance last year, he collapsed. He came round to his wife beating on his chest. He remembers hearing her say, “He’s unconscious”, and wondering who she meant. Paramedics arrived and he collapsed again. His heart rate dropped to 25. He was taken to hospital under flashing blue lights.
“This is trauma in action,” Williams says. “It can’t be underestimated. Things heal, but that mental side cascades into your body. I’ve learnt a lot about it. I’m getting goosebumps now. I don’t think we can underestimate trauma, and we need to accept this is the psychological impact of these kinds of incidents that a lot of victims will feel is immense.”
The Kent FA referred Williams’s disciplinary case to a National Serious Case Panel. He is complimentary about the careful way it was handled. He asked not to see Marks and for Marks not to see him — “that was all cared for nicely”.
But he was surprised that, after hearing the evidence, Marks was handed a five-year ban from the game, when the most serious offenders face a ten-year sanction.
Williams consulted his family, who all questioned the leniency, then complained to the FA. “The FA has actually apologised to me and said it was dealt with as a low-category offence and wasn’t given the gravitas it should’ve had. It should’ve been dealt with as a serious offence and therefore he should’ve had a ten-year ban.
“I’ve offered my services should there ever be a case like this again. I was told I’m the first referee that’s been strangled that they’ve had to deal with. They possibly would’ve benefited, the commission, from having an input from somebody, whether me or another expert, to have some training on the impact of strangulation. Because it’s clearly a serious offence.”
The FA declined to comment, but insisted that a charge of assault or attempted assault on a match official — which carries a five to ten-year suspension — was proven, so sanctioning guidelines were followed.
A Kent FA spokesman said that “violent behaviour has no place in football” and that it would “continue to take a robust approach by ensuring participants are educated on expected standards of behaviour and by applying the strongest possible sanctions to those who commit serious offences”.
Williams wonders whether things might have been different had the FA chosen Kent as one of the four counties to trial referee body cameras. The trials began the same weekend as his attack. “Bodycams are essential,” he says. “It’s a great tool and nobody can argue with them.”
Across his 25 years of refereeing, Williams has seen behaviour deteriorate — sharply in the post-Covid years. He supports the idea of under-18 referees wearing a special armband and likes the FA’s Respect initiative, but insists it has to be “more than just words”.
Since the attack, he has stepped away from adult football and focused on youth games, from ages 12 to 18. “At the weekend I had a 12-year-old boy call me a shit referee. Now where’s that come from? If you think of that game, his coaches: one was sent off for two forms of dissent — two yellow cards — and the other coach was also cautioned for dissent. What role modelling is occurring there?”
Did he ever consider quitting refereeing?
“That really cemented itself in the self-doubt I had,” he says. “What was it about me that had created this? Once I’d shaken that off, and I realised that it wasn’t me — I was enforcing the laws of the game that occurred — the breakdown in people’s behaviour has to be laid at their door. It’s their choice.
“The love of the game outweighed the negativity. I love seeing people express themselves, I love football, and it requires men and women in the middle who are willing to take on the role. It’s not an easy one.”
His concern is that too many people see football as a place where they can act in a way they never would elsewhere.
“We’ve got to appreciate that just because you’re playing [football], the laws of the land are still operating. Whether it be in conduct, words, action — you’re still responsible for yourself. We need to convey that again to the police service and the CPS. Just because it happens on a patch of grass, it shouldn’t trivialise it.
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How strangled referee’s life was upended by Sunday League assault
new
Peter Williams is still struggling with PTSD and depression three years on from an incident that showcases the dangers officials face at grassroots level
Sam Cunningham
Sunday March 22 2026, 2.15pm GMT, The Times
Peter Williams could never have imagined how drastically his life would change when he blew the whistle to start a football match three years ago.
A referee for 25 years, he was enjoying officiating an entertaining West Kent Sunday Football League game on a warm, sunny February day. At the Paddock Wood Memorial Ground, Dormansland Rockets went two goals ahead, then Insulators FC drew level before Dormansland struck a winner.
As the game grew heated, Williams booked three Insulators players for dissent, sending them to the sin-bin for ten minutes under grassroots football rules. He also had to speak to their assistant manager, Daniel Marks, on the touchline more than once.
After the match, while Williams was talking to a fan, Marks approached and threatened him. When Marks called him “a c***”, Williams showed him a red card.
What happened next was, Williams tells The Times, “the worst thing I could’ve done”.
“I turned my back on him, walked away, walked four, five, six steps, then I’m hit from behind. I described it to the police as like being hit with a body slam. I went forward; my neck went back. Now I’ve got an arm across my throat and I’m being strangled.
“My recollection is being hit in the face — he pulled his fist back and hit me. He’s then continued to hold me in the crook of his arm. I just didn’t know when he was going to stop applying the pressure. I didn’t know what would satisfy him.
“I’ve never been in that position before. And then it all goes . . . I lose consciousness. I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I wake up on the ground, face is in the grass, I’m in a crucifix position, my arms are out either side, legs are straight.”
That moment changed Williams’s life in ways that the 66-year-old is still trying to understand. It sent him on a dark, painful journey through trauma that continues today, even though a degree of closure came when Marks was sentenced for assault by battery at Maidstone magistrates’ court on March 5.
District Judge Claire Luxford found she could not be sure that Williams lost consciousness, but giving his victim impact statement in court, Williams said: “I have never felt as frightened, helpless, or close to death as I did during this assault.
“While I was being strangled from behind, I genuinely believed that I might be taking my last breath. The feeling of having another person deliberately restrict the oxygen to my brain, and render me unconscious, has left a permanent mark on me.”
Before the attack, he was calm, confident, easy-going. A 30-year career as a policeman had made him feel “bomb proof”, but “some of that has disappeared now,” he says.
Some remains, though, in the bravery he shows in sharing his story — a warning about the dangers grassroots referees face in the environment where many young officials take their first steps towards the Premier League. It is the real-world consequence of a culture in which referees are dissected by pundits in front of millions every weekend.
An FA report into grassroots discipline found there were 194 allegations of assault or attempted assault on match officials last season — roughly four every week over the course of the season, and a 104 per cent increase on the year before.
Marks was initially charged with non-fatal strangulation, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) later reduced the charge due to a lack of evidence. He was fined £1,125, ordered to pay Williams £1,100 compensation and handed a restraining order.
Marks, a father of one, was described in court by his lawyer as “a hard-working, family man. His behaviour on this day was entirely out of character”. In an earlier hearing, Marks denied punching or strangling Williams. He claimed he tripped over water bottles and fell into the referee, but the judge said this did not happen. He is now serving a lengthy ban from football.
Over time, Williams had PTSD diagnosed and suffered with mild anxiety and depression. He endures disturbed sleep, panic attacks, flashbacks and, as he said in court, “nightmares involving strangulation”. The swollen carotid artery, scratch marks on his neck, the burst blood vessels on his forehead and cut on his face all healed, but the psychological damage endured.
“[It is] like having frayed ends. It’s as if you wake up and the trauma of the incident is being spilled across the floor. And you can’t actually contain the spillage,” he says. “It has greatly occupied three years of my life that I didn’t need to have. I can’t get that back. I’m a changed person as a result of it.”
peter tarry for the times
Williams continues to see a therapist. Confrontation still triggers him, though there has been progress. “In the early days I wouldn’t be able to speak like this,” he says. “I’d be in floods of tears.”
He shares with The Times two tearful videos he recorded on the day of the attack and the day after. In one, he says that “humanity took a dent yesterday”. The ordeal has taken a toll on his family, too.
“Because it was always at the forefront of my mind, you’re almost dragging your family down,” he says. “Sometimes you internalise it and don’t want to share it because you know the impact that’s going to have on them. My wife and family members have had to live with my mental health issues and make adjustments for them, which I thank them for. They are the hidden victims.”
The day before a court appearance last year, he collapsed. He came round to his wife beating on his chest. He remembers hearing her say, “He’s unconscious”, and wondering who she meant. Paramedics arrived and he collapsed again. His heart rate dropped to 25. He was taken to hospital under flashing blue lights.
“This is trauma in action,” Williams says. “It can’t be underestimated. Things heal, but that mental side cascades into your body. I’ve learnt a lot about it. I’m getting goosebumps now. I don’t think we can underestimate trauma, and we need to accept this is the psychological impact of these kinds of incidents that a lot of victims will feel is immense.”
The Kent FA referred Williams’s disciplinary case to a National Serious Case Panel. He is complimentary about the careful way it was handled. He asked not to see Marks and for Marks not to see him — “that was all cared for nicely”.
But he was surprised that, after hearing the evidence, Marks was handed a five-year ban from the game, when the most serious offenders face a ten-year sanction.
Williams consulted his family, who all questioned the leniency, then complained to the FA. “The FA has actually apologised to me and said it was dealt with as a low-category offence and wasn’t given the gravitas it should’ve had. It should’ve been dealt with as a serious offence and therefore he should’ve had a ten-year ban.
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“I’ve offered my services should there ever be a case like this again. I was told I’m the first referee that’s been strangled that they’ve had to deal with. They possibly would’ve benefited, the commission, from having an input from somebody, whether me or another expert, to have some training on the impact of strangulation. Because it’s clearly a serious offence.”
The FA declined to comment, but insisted that a charge of assault or attempted assault on a match official — which carries a five to ten-year suspension — was proven, so sanctioning guidelines were followed.
A Kent FA spokesman said that “violent behaviour has no place in football” and that it would “continue to take a robust approach by ensuring participants are educated on expected standards of behaviour and by applying the strongest possible sanctions to those who commit serious offences”.
Williams wonders whether things might have been different had the FA chosen Kent as one of the four counties to trial referee body cameras. The trials began the same weekend as his attack. “Bodycams are essential,” he says. “It’s a great tool and nobody can argue with them.”
Across his 25 years of refereeing, Williams has seen behaviour deteriorate — sharply in the post-Covid years. He supports the idea of under-18 referees wearing a special armband and likes the FA’s Respect initiative, but insists it has to be “more than just words”.
Since the attack, he has stepped away from adult football and focused on youth games, from ages 12 to 18. “At the weekend I had a 12-year-old boy call me a shit referee. Now where’s that come from? If you think of that game, his coaches: one was sent off for two forms of dissent — two yellow cards — and the other coach was also cautioned for dissent. What role modelling is occurring there?”
Did he ever consider quitting refereeing?
“That really cemented itself in the self-doubt I had,” he says. “What was it about me that had created this? Once I’d shaken that off, and I realised that it wasn’t me — I was enforcing the laws of the game that occurred — the breakdown in people’s behaviour has to be laid at their door. It’s their choice.
“The love of the game outweighed the negativity. I love seeing people express themselves, I love football, and it requires men and women in the middle who are willing to take on the role. It’s not an easy one.”
His concern is that too many people see football as a place where they can act in a way they never would elsewhere.
“We’ve got to appreciate that just because you’re playing [football], the laws of the land are still operating. Whether it be in conduct, words, action — you’re still responsible for yourself. We need to convey that again to the police service and the CPS. Just because it happens on a patch of grass, it shouldn’t trivialise it.
“They’ve got to remember we’re people, too.”