A former journalist who was given a suspended jail term last year for harassing female colleagues has died after falling from a multi-storey car park.

Robert Sutcliffe, left, won several awards over the course of a 34-year career in local journalism which included stints on the Yorkshire Post and later the Hudderfield Examiner and Yorkshire Live.

But his once-promising career imploded after he was suspended from work by Examiner publisher Reach plc in 2023 amid allegations of harassing female colleagues.

He was subsequently given a suspended jail term after admitting five counts of harassment against four women, including two colleagues at Reach.

Robert, who had struggled with mental health problems in recent years, was found seriously injured in Wellington Place, Leeds – just yards from his former Yorkshire Post workplace – after apparently falling from a multi-storey car park.

West Yorkshire Police and the ambulance service attended the incident at 7.36am on Thursday morning.

Leeds-based breaking news service Yapp App reported that Robert was later pronounced dead at the scene.

He is believed to have taken his own life and the Coroner’s Office for West Yorkshire has been informed.

Robert began his career in newspapers on a weekly newspaper in Doncaster in 1989 before moving to a reporting job at the Barnsley Chronicle.

In 1998 he joined the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford, covering the Bingley area, before joining the Post as its Calderdale reporter, a position he held for 11 years.

He joined his hometown paper the Examiner in October 2012, remaining with the title until his suspension in August 2023.

The following month it was confirmed he had left the paper.

In November of that year, he appeared before Leeds magistrates where he admitted five charges of harassment without violence.

He was given a 24-week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, in April last year for what prosecutors described as a “relentless” campaign of misogyny.

Robert’s death has prompted a wave of tributes on social media, with one friend describing him as a “fine journalist” who had “lost his way.”

Another commented: “Despite mistakes he may have made, he was a very kind and supportive man. A man who was a bloody good journalist.”