Manchester City’s independent inquiry into the Barry Bennell scandal is investigating claims that another sex offender, jailed on Friday for four counts of indecent assault against a teenage boy in the 1990s, had connections to the club.

William Toner, 74, was jailed for three years and two months after a trial heard he preyed on a junior footballer after claiming to work for City, as well as having links to clubs in Bury, Rochdale, Oldham and Cambridgeshire.

Manchester City ‘ignored warnings’ and kept Barry Bennell in youth set-up Read more

Toner – also known as Bill – was arrested after his victim, an aspiring footballer from Bury, contacted City to report he had been abused over a period of years by a man purporting to scout youngsters for their junior system. City’s belief is that Toner was not a formal employee with a salary and official position. However, the club said in a statement it would “conduct further exhaustive investigations into these allegations over the coming weeks and will seek to understand if, and if so to what extent, Mr Toner was connected to Manchester City”.

City launched an independent inquiry in November 2016 after the former professional footballer Andy Woodward told the Guardian about the abuse he suffered from Bennell, then the youth-team coach at Crewe Alexandra, and appealed for other victims to come forward.

Bennell, a serial offender who also had a seven-year association with City’s junior system, is serving a 30-year prison sentence after being convicted in February of raping and molesting 12 players on countless occasions from 1979 to 1991. City’s inquiries have also revealed multiple allegations against a second man, the now-deceased John Broome, from the club’s junior set-up in the late-1960s. No links have been found to tie Bennell with either Broome or Toner.

In their statement City said they had encouraged Toner’s victim to speak to the NSPCC, which had brought in the police. The club said they had been asked not to progress with their own interviews until any criminal proceedings had concluded. “The witness was offered, at an early stage, the use of the support organisations which are assisting with the club’s review,” the statement added. “The review team is now able to progress its investigations into this matter and has already recently interviewed the witness.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The publicity surrounding the Andy Woodward case persuaded William Toner’s victim to come forward. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The trial at Bolton crown court was told Toner, of Whitworth, Lancashire, offered the boy one-on-one coaching, telling him he had the potential to make a career in the game, but would inappropriately massage the boy before sexually abusing him.

Toner’s victim was so traumatised by the abuse he felt unable to tell his family and eventually turned his back on the sport, keeping it as a secret until the publicity surrounding the Woodward case persuaded him to come forward as part of what the Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as a “tidal wave”.

According to the latest available police figures, 300 suspects had been identified since Woodward’s interview. A total of 849 alleged victims had come forward, with 2,807 incidents reported, 340 different clubs named and Toner the latest in a string of convictions.

Detective Sergeant Dave Jones, from GMP’s Operation Corduroy investigation team, praised the boy for speaking out so many years later. “This victim dreamed of being a footballer, just like many others, and Toner ripped that dream away from him and made it a living nightmare. He used his esteemed position as a football scout to perversely prey on a vulnerable young boy with a promising career ahead of him. His abuse was sickening and deplorable and the victim felt he had no other choice but to turn his back on that dream in a bid to escape it.”