Police quiz teens on Stan Collymore abuse, as Ulrika Jonsson criticises star's 'hypocrisy'

A boy, 14, from Liverpool area, and a 15-year-old from Bedfordshire, have been spoken to by officers, Staffordshire Police anbnounced this afternoon.

The force added: "At this point, neither have been arrested and the investigation is ongoing."

It came as Collymore deleted and then reactivated his Twitter account in the wake of the racist abuse – and backlash from his ex, Ulrika Jonsson, who called him a 'vile hypocrite'.

The former Aston Villa star attacked the television presenter in a Paris bar in 1998. And today she hit out at talkSPORT pundit Collymore, who has received racist and death threats on the social networking site.

"If he's so against death threats, why did he say he'd 'f****** kill' me? It's a disgrace," she said. Collymore took to Twitter to defend himself saying that he regretted the actions of the night and although the violence was wrong, he insisted it was nowhere near as aggressive as it had been reported. However, by this morning Collymore, aged 43, had deleted the account.

This morning, links to his page redirect to a 'This page does not exist' message. His account had been restored this afternoon. It comes after the former England player spent yesterday hitting out at Twitter, saying the site does not do enough to stop trolls.

Last night he appeared on BBC's Crimewatch during a segment on Twitter abuse and said the amount of abuse he is receiving is getting worse.

It comes as police continue to investigate vile messages sent to him in the last week. He said: "The amount of racist abuse just seems to be getting worse. On top of that, threats to kill, threats to turn up to my home and murder. This is almost now Twitter living in its own bubble with a tagline on the top 'freedom of speech'."

He then went on to describe the trolls saying: "They don't live in the UK, they live in Twitter world. And in Twitter world you can say anything and that is a dangerous precedent to set."

The ex-Stafford Rangers player, from Cannock, sparked a backlash of abuse after he suggested Liverpool striker Luis Suarez cheated by diving on Saturday.

Collymore has named and shamed the trolls by retweeting some of the abuse he has received, since the match against Villa, to his 503,000 followers – including death threats.

Staffordshire Police are investigating the offensive messages directed at Collymore.

Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis has described the abuse towards Collymore as 'abhorrent' and says he will be urging officers to take the investigation 'as far as possible'.

He has also hit out at Twitter, saying the people behind it aren't doing enough.

Chief Insp Carl Ratcliffe, Staffordshire's lead officer on hate crime, said: "We will not tolerate hate crime. Sadly some people mistakenly believe that anything said or done on Twitter or Facebook somehow doesn't count, they think it doesn't matter because it's not face to face. They are very wrong."