A popular priest taken ill after finishing Sunday service has died in hospital.

Church goers had no idea Father Peter Lewis Edwards was feeling unwell during the 11.30am service at Sacred Heart Church, Norton Road, Hove.

But afterwards the 56-year-old went to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where doctors first thought he had suffered a heart attack.

He was kept in for further tests but died on Tuesday.

Fr Edwards had only been parish priest at Sacred Heart Church since February, after serving for ten years at the Holy Family Parish Church, North Road, Lancing.

His induction service to one of the main Roman Catholic Churches in Hove was attended by then mayor of Brighton and Hove, David Watkins, and Hove MP Ivor Caplin.

Fr Edwards, who was having chemotherapy treatment for a form of cancer, had already become a popular figure within the church community.

Stuart Gray, diocesan communications officer for Arundel and Brighton, said: "A lot of people are very shocked by his sudden death. He was on light duties while having chemotherapy but no one expected this. The parish is in total shock.

"People who attended that service will be stunned to learn of his death."

Parishioner Sally Harvey, of The Martlets, Hove said: "His death has come as a great shock. He was very popular in the short time he was with us as the priest. We were all looking forward to working with him and moving forward with him."

Fr Edwards, who was undergoing treatment after becoming ill while working as a missionary in Africa, was born in London in February 1947 and educated at the English Martyrs RC Secondary school, near Elephant and Castle, South-East London.

He was a committed Catholic and decided he wanted to become a missionary priest from a young age.

He trained in Osterley, West London, in 1966 and a year later moved on to the Missiehuis Roosiondaal in Holland, which was the start of his missionary training.

His specialist subject was philosophy and later he returned to Mill Hill, North London, which is the centre for one of the major Missionary Orders in the world.

He was ordained a priest for the Mill Hill Missionaries in June 1973.

With them he served in the Diocese of Bamenda in Cameroon, West Africa, from 1973 to 1983, when he moved to the Mission Retreat Centre in Durban, South Africa as Vice-Rector.

In latter days in that role he became ill, prompting his return to England in 1986. He worked at the Parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in Thames Ditton until 1989.

He joined the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton at West Byfleet and four years later he became Parish Priest of Holy Family Parish in Lancing, West Sussex.

He was appointed to Sacred Heart Parish in Hove in 2002 and was inducted as parish priest in February.

No details of the funeral have yet been announced.