Smiling Love Island star Jack Fincham avoids prison after winning dog attack appeal
He will not be doing jail time.
Love Island star Jack Fincham has avoided jail after winning an appeal against a dog attack charge.
The reality TV star, 32, walked free today from court after winning his appeal over the incident, in which his cane corso dog Elvis attacked a runner called Robert Sudwell.
In January he was sentenced to six weeks in prison at a hearing in Southend Magistrates’ Court for a dangerous dog offence, but was released on bail two hours later to appeal the sentence.
Fincham, who won the 2018 series of the ITV2 show with Dani Dyer, admitted in the earlier hearing to two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog.
Today, he returned to court and faced being jailed, but he overturned the sentence and walked free, smiling as he left Basildon Crown Court.
The judge ruled that January’s ruling was not ‘just’ and set aside the custodial sentence.
Fincham’s dog attacked two people (Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire) Dani Dyer and Jack won the ITV show in 2018 but split the following year (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)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 Elvis bit 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.
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’.
He was given a six week jail sentence in June, but was released on bail hours later having been offered an appeal (Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)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.
The judge extended an existing suspended sentence order (Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)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 Sudell.
As he was handed the fine, the court heard how Fincham had ‘no savings’ and would have to pay off the penalty in instalments.
A few weeks later Jack spoke about his addiction issues and how he feels ‘like a failure’ for blowing over £1,000,000 on drugs, booze and gambling after finding Love Island fame.
‘I feel like a failure, utterly mortified by the things I have done. I had the world at my feet, and I screwed it up,’ he said.
‘Embarrassed just doesn’t touch it. It is hideous. I cry when I think about how I’ve let people down.
‘I have blown more than a million pounds thanks to drugs, booze and gambling,’ he said when speaking to The Sun.
He then explained on a This Morning appearance that he ‘wasn’t in [his] right mind’.
‘The behaviour – driving, having no regard for even myself. I didn’t even care for myself,’ he said on the show.
Jack appeared on This Morning to talk about addition last month (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)Jack, who has been sober since Christmas, added: ‘The amount of opportunities I have messed up due to this, but would not confront it and actually say, “I have a problem here.”‘
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’.
Jack says he gambled his opportunities away after winning Love Island (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)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’, Cooper said.
The judge responded: ‘It’s his own stupidity, then.’
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’.
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