Two funeral masses will be held for the popular Roman Catholic parish priest who died in a fire in his presbytery in Peacehaven.

Firemen found the body of Father Patrick Emmanuel in the bathroom of the presbytery following a serious early-morning blaze at the property in Horsham Avenue on April 12.

The presbytery backs on to the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady in Edith Avenue.

The body of Father Pat will be received into the church at 5pm on Sunday ready for a funeral mass on Monday at 11.30am.

The Mayor of Peacehaven Stewart Murray and Albion footballer Kerry Mayo and their families were members of his congregation.

A requiem mass will be held at his former church, St Joseph's, Redhill at 3pm on Monday for all the people Father Pat had met during his career in the Roman Catholic Church.

The priest, who had been at the church since 1998. would have been 50 on May 7.

He was one of the few black Roman Catholic priests in Britain.

He was educated in Sri Lanka and India and ordained a priest for the Diocese of Kandy in 1975, but was forced to flee the country in 1983 because of the political situation.

He came to Britain in 1983 and was assistant priest at St Elizabeth's Church, Foleshill, Coventry for four years before becoming chaplain at Warwick University.

His career in the South of England started when he came to the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in 1994 working at St Joseph's, Redhill, before taking charge at Peacehaven in 1998.

No date for an inquest has yet been fixed.