Robert Sugden was born on 22 April 1986 by his birth mother Pat (Helen Weir), who raised him together with his father Jack. He is their youngest child and soon has three older siblings, a brother Jackie (Ian Sharrock), a half-sister Sandie Merrick (Jane Hutcheson) and a half-brother Tommy Merrick. When Robert was four months old, his mother was killed in a car crash and his brother, Jackie, was killed in a shooting accident when he was three. Sandie also leaves the village for Scotland, and Robert loses contact with his maternal family. After Pat's death, Robert stays with his father who brings him up alone for the next two years but gets a new mother figure in Sarah Connolly (Madeleine Howard), whom Jack starts dating in 1988 and later marries in May 1994. Robert's half-sister, Victoria (Jessica Haywood), is born the same year.