Former Bradford City star Stan Collymore has accused Twitter of “not doing enough” to combat abusive tweets on the social networking site after he was targeted by internet trolls.

Police confirmed on Tuesday night they were investigating a series of offensive messages directed at the former England striker after the pundit suggested Liverpool striker Luis Suarez cheated by diving during Saturday’s match against Aston Villa.

Mr Collymore retweeted some of the abuse he has received since the match to his 503,000 followers as he called on Twitter to take action.

He wrote: “In the last 24 hours I’ve been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why?

“I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic/ sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK.”

He added later: “Several police forces have been fantastic. Twitter haven’t. Dismayed.”

Later the 42-year-old said he was in contact with Staffordshire Police.

West Midlands Police urged people to block and report abuse at report-it.org. uk.

A Twitter spokesman said last night the company was unable to comment on individual users but pointed out that targeted abuse was against its rules.