Love Island star Jack Fincham wins appeal against prison sentence after dog attack on runner
21 March 2025, 11:56
Former Love Island winner Jack Fincham, who was handed a six-week jail term earlier this year for dangerous dog offences, has won an appeal against his prison sentence and walked free from court with an extension to his suspended sentence order instead.
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The 32-year-old, who won the 2018 series of the ITV2 show with Dani Dyer, admitted at an earlier hearing to two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog.
He was sentenced at the earlier hearing at Southend Magistrates' Court on January 29 to six weeks in prison, but on Friday a judge ruled that was not "just" and set aside the custodial sentence.
Instead, she extended an existing suspended sentence order - that had been imposed for an unrelated driving matter - by three months.
Prosecutors said Fincham's dog, a black cane corso called Elvis, bit a runner named Robert Sudell in September 2022 in Swanley, Kent, causing an injury to his arm.
In June 2024, the dog was said to be out of control and grabbed a woman's leg in Grays in Essex, leaving no injury.
Fincham, of Grays in Essex, lodged an appeal against his sentence within hours of having been sentenced.
He was released on conditional bail on January 29 pending his appeal, and this was heard at Basildon Crown Court on Friday.
Judge Samantha Leigh found that the activation by magistrates of a suspended sentence order for an unrelated driving matter "wasn't just in the circumstances".
The order, of 12 weeks custody suspended for 18 months, had been imposed on Fincham in March last year for an unrelated driving matter in 2023.
This included an offence of drug-driving and fraudulent use of a registration mark.
The suspended sentence was activated in part by magistrates in January following Fincham's guilty pleas to the dangerous dog offences.
Judge Leigh said the activation of this order "wasn't just in the circumstances" and instead ordered a three-month extension in the operational period of the suspended sentence order.
The judge did not alter the rest of the sentence.
As part of his original sentence passed at the magistrates' court, Fincham was also ordered to pay £3,680, including a £2,000 contribution to kennelling costs, a fine of £961 and £200 compensation to Mr Sudell.
Richard Cooper, for Fincham, said that the dog incident in June 2024 happened when Fincham had "just moved to the property and was bringing boxes in from the car - while he did so the dog slipped out".
Fincham attended a voluntary police interview in June 2024 and was given a caution with conditions including to keep the dog muzzled and on a lead at all times in public places.
Hannah Steventon, prosecuting, said that in August 2024 police attended a hotel "on unrelated matters" and it was found that Fincham's dog had been in the public pool area and was not on a lead or muzzled.
Mr Cooper said Fincham "had wanted to take his dog somewhere it would have a little more freedom so found online this hotel that specifically marketed itself as dog friendly".
He said the defendant, who has ADHD, "believed this was a solution to the problem so he could take Elvis to the hotel, let him off the lead and made no secret of that fact".
Fincham "let him off the lead at the swimming pool" and "broadcast that to his social media followers, of which there are about two million", Mr Cooper said.
The judge responded: "It's his own stupidity, then."
Mr Cooper said: "These are problems of his own making however in my submission there's been remarkable progress."
He said Fincham has "returned to a nine to five job" and has also returned to boxing but "sees that as something on the side".
Re-sentencing Fincham to an extension to his suspended order instead of an immediate prison sentence, the judge warned the defendant he needed to be "very careful now".
