Scotland Yard is to launch a new probe into allegations a former England football star abused under-age girls amid claims it mishandled the case 15 years ago.
Two women say they were indecently assaulted by Keith Weller, who played for Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea and Leicester and was capped four times by England during a glittering career.
The accusations were first made in 2002 when a number of women told the Metropolitan Police that Weller had molested them as children in the mid-1960s and early 1980s.
But after an inquiry spanning several months the Crown Prosecution Service ruled no charges should be brought.
Two women say they were indecently assaulted by Keith Weller, who played for Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Leicester City during a glittering career
Weller's widow Terry looked shocked when told about allegations of sex abuse against her husband.
'I don't know. I'm not even going to respond,' she said.
Mrs Weller, who still has a strong London accent despite living in America since the late 1970s, clutched her phone as she spoke to the Daily Mail and appeared nervous.
The 68-year-old real estate agent said she knew 'nothing at all' about claims her husband had molested children.
I am going to have to process this. I can't comprehend. I will have to think about it Terry Weller, widowShe said: 'This has taken me so much by surprise. I am really shocked. My husband's been dead for 12 years. Oh my gosh.
'I am going to have to process this. I can't comprehend. I will have to think about it.'
The petite brunette was just 19 when she married up-and-coming footballer Weller, then 21, in north London 49 years ago.
After the births of two daughters, they settled in Leicester - Weller played 262 games for the current Premier League champions - before moving to the US in 1978.
The mother of one complainant wrote in May 2003 to Sir John Stevens, the then head of the Metropolitan Police, to protest about his force's handling of the allegations.
Keith Weller (centre, in white) is pictured playing against QPR in 1974. He was a winger and is so revered at Leicester that an executive lounge at their stadium is named after him
The Daily Mail has seen a copy of the letter in which she describes the CPS decision not to press charges as 'stupid, utter nonsense', and said Weller's victims had been 'very seriously let down by the judicial system in this country while their assailant has escaped without even a caution'.
In response to the letter, a senior Met detective said a CPS lawyer had concluded 'there was insufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction'.
Police did not reopen the case – which went unreported at the time – meaning the married father of two died aged 58, from cancer, in 2004 without facing justice.
Sources said Weller was aware child sex allegations had been made about him to the police, but was not interviewed.
But now, in the aftermath of the football child-abuse scandal, two of Weller's original accusers have contacted a hotline set up by children's charity the NSPCC to renew their accusations.
A detective has contacted one of the women to confirm the Met will reinvestigate.
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Share 32 sharesCritics said the force's original handling of the Weller case is an indictment of how child sex-abuse allegations were treated before the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Weller's two alleged victims blasted police and prosecutors for failures when they first reported their claims. They described how they had been abused while blindfolded and spoke of their fears there could be other victims in the UK and the US, where Weller played and coached after leaving Leicester.
The first accuser, who says she was abused when aged about 11 in the mid-1960s, said: 'I don't think that we were taken seriously by police in 2002, I think it was maybe too much of an effort at that time.
Two women say they were indecently assaulted by Keith Weller (pictured), who started his career at Spurs in 1964
'I don't know what more damage has been done by Keith Weller. I can't believe it was just us.'
The other accuser, who says she was abused by Weller when she was aged eight in the early 1980s, said of the original Met investigation: 'We were led to believe that it was such a strong case. For then to be told that because there were no witnesses, it was a poor case and we are not taking it any further... it was a massive, massive let down.'
A source close to the case said the Met had been overwhelmed by Operation Ore, an inquiry into internet child porn, at the time the Weller allegations were made and prioritised this over historical cases.
After the child-abuse allegations were made against Weller in 2002 police liaised with the authorities in the US where the ex-football star was still based.
The mother who wrote to the Met in May 2003 wrote again two months later saying she had expected that US law enforcement agencies would 'at the very least' have paid a visit to Weller 'to issue a warning if nothing else about his shameful behaviour'.
Weller, an attacking midfielder, was a household name in the 1970s when he helped Chelsea win the European Cup Winners' Cup and was capped four times by England.
He is regarded as one of Leicester's greatest ever players and an executive lounge is named after him at the club's stadium where a painting of him has also been unveiled.
Weller was a player and coach for the New England Tea Men before joining the South Florida Sun in Fort Lauderdale.
Keith Weller (left) shakes hands with his new manager Jim Bloomfield, after joining Leicester from Chelsea in 1971
In the 1980s he coaching teams in Oklahoma, Houston, Dallas and San Diego.
The Wellers settled in Gig Harbor, an hour's drive south of Seattle, where he coached the Tacoma Stars indoor football team.
As the team faced financial collapse - they folded in 1992 - he spent five days on top of a 30 foot platform in a Tacoma shopping mall in a bid to sell tickets for a game.
After retiring, he drove trucks for a local TV station and briefly ran a coffee shop.
In 2002 he was diagnosed with a rare cancer and given just six months to live.
But he defied his doctors after seeking alternative therapy in Mexico and California and Leicester City players helped raise £75,000 for his treatment.
He eventually died in November 2004.
Their eldest daughter, now 48, is a nurse at a plastic surgery clinic and lives with her husband and two sons on an island five miles away.
Their youngest daughter, a 45-year old mother of two, is a teacher in California.
The Metropolitan Police refused to comment. A CPS spokesman said: 'The prosecution of child sexual abuse cases has changed significantly since 2003.'
WHAT THAT SICK MAN DID WAS ALWAYS AT BACK OF MY MIND
ACCUSER 1: It is half a century since she was allegedly abused by Keith Weller, then an emerging star at Tottenham Hotspur.
But the memories refuse to fade and she breaks down in tears as she recalls her suffering. She says she was blindfolded and alone with Weller in a London flat when he molested her. She was about 11.
The girl and her family had known Weller for a number of years and trusted him to be alone with her.
The woman, now in her 60s, told the Mail: 'I can remember saying, 'No, I don't want to do this. What are you doing?' I went to take the blindfold off and he shouted, in a panic, 'Don't take it off, don't take it off.' He was obviously adjusting himself. I did take it off, and I just knew something had happened. I remember feeling very uncomfortable.
'It was always at the back of my mind what he had done. You know when you have that feeling something was not right. What a sick man.'
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, kept her ordeal secret for more than 30 years. 'It was only when I was told that he had done it to someone else that it confirmed it for me.'
She was one of the women who made child abuse allegations against Weller in 2002. 'When it was thrown out it was bitterly disappointing,' she said. 'Now things have changed and hopefully we will get justice.'
IT'S WORTH RELIVING MY ORDEAL IF IT WILL HELP ANOTHER VICTIM
ACCUSER 2: Reliving what happened to her as an eight-year-old in the early 1980s has 'cleared a fog' in her mind, the second victim says.
She too was blindfolded when Weller allegedly abused her in a bathroom. 'He got me to sit on a toilet seat,' she said. 'He was standing in front of me, and I remember feeling very uncomfortable about his presence.'
Like the first accuser the woman, now in her 40s and a mother, cannot be named for legal reasons and her family also trusted Weller. She said of her experience: 'As an adult you can put it into context, but as a young child, you can't. Over the years you put it away in the back of your mind, 'Oh that didn't happen,' and then when I heard of other abuse it confirmed to me what had happened.
'If going public means someone else will ring the NSPCC or go to the police and are offered counselling, then it is worth me going through this again.'
She blasted police and the CPS for dropping the case against Weller in 2003. 'They failed us,' she said.
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