A CHURCH of England priest and former teacher jailed for sexually abusing two young boys has died in hospital.

The Reverend Christopher Howarth, who was an inmate at HMP Lewes, died on Tuesday.

The 72-year-old was convicted in 2015 of 26 offences against the boys who he met through his work at Holy Trinity Church in Uckfield.

The Prison Service said his death would be investigated by the Prison and Probation Ombudsman.

The “appalling abuse” had a “devastating effect” on his victims, the Crown Prosecution Service’s Jaswant Narwal said when he was sentenced.

“He was a man they trusted as a lay priest and a former deputy headmaster and he abused that trust in the most appalling way.”

Det Con Amy Green said in 2015: “He was their teacher, he was their priest, he was their family friend and he subjected them to longstanding sexual abuse.”

Howarth had admitted one count of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and was convicted of a further seven counts of sexual activity with a child which took place between 2004 and 2012.

He was an unpaid non-stipendiary priest until he was suspended by the Diocese of Chichester in December 2012.

The former deputy headteacher at Uckfield Community Technology College had denied allegations, saying they were motivated by “financial gain” and that he was too overweight to be sexually active.

But jurors at Hove Crown Court convicted him in July of 26 out of the 31 allegations which took place at his home and at the college.

Howarth, of Rocks Park Road, Uckfield, had already pleaded guilty to an offence against one of the boys.

The court heard how one of the victims first revealed the abuse to his mother seven years later as he was about to meet a support worker to discuss his misuse of cannabis.

Howarth was a priest at St Michael’s in Little Horsted, Holy Cross in Uckfield and St Margaret’s in Ifield until December 2012.

He was deputy headteacher at Uckfield Community Technology College until 2007.

The married retiree justified his sexual behaviour to one of the boys as “preparing him for getting a girlfriend” so that he would not be “scared”, the court heard.