The family of Stephen Gately are preparing to fly his body home to Dublin where his funeral is to be held on Saturday.

The singer's remains are expected to be flown back from Majorca on Friday after a post-mortem found he died from natural causes.

Family: Stephen Gately with partner Andrew Coles

X Factor judge and Boyzone's former manager, Louis Walsh, told how Gately's bandmates returned to Ireland from Majorca to be with the singer's grieving family.

Walsh paid tribute to Gately, saying: “I've lost my very, very best friend. Stephen was never happier when I met him last Monday. I never saw him in better health or in better form. We had a laugh as usual, things were going so well - I still can't believe he's gone. We're all in shock. Nobody can believe it - Boyzone, me, nobody.”

Autopsy reports confirmed yesterday that the Boyzone star died of natural causes in his apartment in Port Andratx, Majorca, after a night out.

The Irish singer suffered an acute pulmonary oedema - or sudden build-up of fluid in the lungs - thought to have been caused by a heart attack.

Experts have said evidence pointed towards Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) - resulting from an undiagnosed heart condition.

The syndrome, which often goes undetected until a massive heart attack, claims the lives of 12 people aged under 35 each week in the UK.

Gately was found dead on Saturday on the sofa in his apartment after a night out. In the hours before he died, he had been in the company of Mr Cowles and a Bulgarian man Georgi Dochev, who they met in the gay nightclub, the Black Cat.

Post-mortem officials yesterday said that alcohol did not cause Gately's death and police have stated there is nothing to suggest any suspicious circumstances.

There had been speculation that Gately, 33, choked on his own vomit. A court official declined to say if Gately had vomited before his death.

She could not say if he had drunk alcohol or taken drugs but said, either way, they were not the cause of his death.

Dr Sanjay Sharma, a leading expert on SADS, said: “In young people like Stephen under 35, the vast majority of heart attacks are due to either hereditary diseases affecting the heart muscle itself or an electrical fault of the heart.

“If I was a betting man I would say this was an electrical fault.”

The singer's mother, Margaret Gately, believes he may have died from an undetected heart condition which runs in the family.

She said, through lawyer Gerald Kean, a spokesman for Gately's family in Ireland: “As soon as I heard he had died I knew it was a heart problem. It has lifted a huge burden off our family's shoulders.”

Mr Kean added: “There is a heart condition on his dad Martin's side of the family. Stephen would have had no idead he had this condition.”