A man who ran a children's activity centre in Sussex despite being known as a danger to young people has killed himself while awaiting trial for paedophile charges in Thailand.

Nicholas Rabet, 56, who lived at Cross-in-Hand, near Heathfield, for five years before moving to Asia, was suspected of having sex with up to 300 underage boys.

He was found dead in his bedroom in the Thai sex tourism capital of Pattaya on Sunday with a plastic bag taped over his head and his wrists handcuffed to his ankles.

A suicide note next to his body read: "Sorry I have to leave like this but it is the only way to escape the stress of my life.

"Thank you to everyone who has tried to help me through it but this seems to be my only way out."

Rabet opened the popular activity centre at The Stables, Back Lane, Cross-in-Hand, in the Eighties after he was left the property by an elderly widow he had befriended.

It was used by local authorities, children's charities, schools and families.

But loopholes in the system meant police and councils in Sussex were not informed that Rabet had left his former job as deputy head of a council-run children's home in north London following claims he molested a young boy.

His name was placed on a consultancy register for people deemed unsuitable to work with children.

But its rules did not cover the Sussex centre, where children could ride motorbikes and play video games, because it was privately owned.

Rabet sold the centre and fled to Thailand after he was again accused of serious sexual abuse in 1991.

Sussex Police interviewed him following an allegation by a boy from London, but he was not charged.

The same year his home was searched by police investigating an abuse allegation in Cambridgeshire, when officers reportedly seized hundreds of pictures of young boys, gay porn and a collection of male underwear.

Rabet, originally from St Helier, Jersey, was facing up to five years in jail if found guilty in Thailand.

He was said to have paid between 40p and £13 to victims as young as six for sex acts and "commission" to those introducing new boys to him.

Hundreds of boys were said to have played at his rented house, 30 of them regularly.

Rabet was arrested after teachers complained and three of his alleged victims, aged 11 to 14, confronted him at Pattaya police station.

Police seized 11 game consoles, snacks and plastic bags filled with the clothes of children who visited.

Rabet was bailed after being charged with multiple paedophile offences last July.

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman confirmed that a British citizen had been found dead at his home, adding: "Local police believe the death to be suicide."