The parents of a snowboarder killed in an avalanche in the French Alps have praised the rescue team who discovered his body.

James Rourke, 26, of West Way, Littlehampton, died when he was swept more than 2,500ft down the notorious Grande Motte mountain at Tignes.

He was with friend Sam Harber, 25, from Suffolk, who is feared dead.

The pair, both experienced snowboarders, were caught in a huge "slab avalanche" while off-piste on the glacier in the French resort.

Both men had scaled the peak weeks earlier to raise £18,000 for tsunami victims in South-East Asia. They were working for chalet tour operator Snowline VIP in the ski resort of Val d'Isere.

The avalanche, caused by a deadly combination of high winds and new snow, broke on Thursday 300ft above the pair at a height of about 10,500ft. They were carried down the glacier to about 2,600ft.

Mr Rourke's parents, Peter, 51, a security guard, and Anne, 48, flew to France when they heard of the accident.

They returned full of praise for the rescue team which found his body and brought it down from the mountain.

His sister Christie, 22, who is studying sports therapy at Chichester College, said: "My parents are full of praise for those who risked their lives to find James' body and the way they have been sympathetically treated in Val d'Isere.

"James had a wide circle of friends all over the world and was extremely popular wherever he stayed."

His parents visited close friends in Crawley before returning to Littlehampton last night.

Mr Rourke, a keen photographer, was born in Crawley and moved to Hampshire with his parents, attending Arnewood Comprehensive School in New Milton before moving back to Sussex. He had studied photography at Brockenhurst before he moved.