A LAW student from Burnley has confessed to racially abusing ex-footballer Stan Collymore on Twitter.

Joshua Cryer, 21, had initially denied leaving a stream of race hate messages on the former Liverpool star’s Twitter feed.

But in a brief hearing at Newcastle City Magistrates Court, Cryer, of Coal Clough Lane, changed his plea to guilty and admitted sending ‘grossly offensive’ messages.

Prosecutors confirmed that the former Clitheroe Royal Grammar School pupil had been remanded on bail for sentence at the same court on March 21.

Collymore lodged a complaint with Staffordshire Police on January 6 after receiving the tweets, sent via a mobile phone and iPad from the account @JoshuaCryer1, and the matter was later investigated by their colleagues in the Northumbria force.

But the ex-England international re-tweeted the offending posts to his 170,000 plus followers before informing the police about the suspected abuse.

The offensive tweets were ended with ‘hashtags’ including #greatracistabuse and #neitherwhitenorblack

Collymore tweeted the following messages in response: “@JoshuaCryer1 In the process of reporting you to Newcastle Police for racist abuse,which is in contravention of UK law.See you in court.”

“Made complaint to Northumbria Police who've just passed it to Staffordshire Police. Ive got screen shots of every message,his fb page”

“>his Newcastle Law School details,and photo. Not having this **** anymore.”

“Joshua, I see you've deleted your tweets.I haven’t.”

Overnight the name Joshua Cryer became a ‘trending topic’ on the website, meaning he was one of the most talked about people in the country.

Photographs and pictures from the user’s account and messages he sent spread across the internet, along with details said to be his Facebook account, university email account and mobile telephone number.

A message was later posted from the @JoshuaCryer1 account, denying the allegations and suggesting the tweets had been made by somebody else, before both the Facebook and Twitter profiles were deleted.

It read: “@Stan Collymore apologies for all the abusive tweets just been notified about it these do not represent my views. #notafunnytwape”

Cryer was arrested at his student house in the Jesmond area of Newcastle on Saturday, January 7. The court was told he has since moved back to the Burnley area.

Collymore, who is originally from Cannock and also played for Aston Villa, now works as a pundit for the TalkSPORT radio station.

The 40-year-old posted news of Cryer’s conviction on his Twitter feed yesterday, where he regularly campaigns against racism and supports the Depression Alliance charity.

Cryer, an amateur sportsman, played for Borrowdale United FC in Burnley.

Ken Inckle, his former manager at Borrowdale, told the Lancashire Telegraph that the incident was ‘out of character’ for the former youth team star.

He said: “I am quite happy to say that Josh Cryer was a very good player, he was loyal to the club and to his manager.

“He was well liked and never caused us on ounce of trouble. I wish he was still playing.”