Love Island star walks free from court after prison sentence overturned

Jack Fincham was facing time in prison after his dog bit a runner

Former Love Island winner Jack Fincham attended Basildon Crown Court for an appeal hearing (PA Wire)

Love Island star Jack Fincham has won an appeal against a six-week prison sentence and walked free from court.

Fincham, who won the 2018 series of the ITV2 show with Dani Dyer, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog.

The 32-year-old was sentenced at Southend Magistrates’ Court on January 29 to six weeks in prison.

However, on Friday at Basildon Crown Court, a judge ruled that was not “just” and set aside the jail sentence.

Instead, she extended an existing suspended sentence order, which 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, Robert Sudell, in September 2022 in Kent. Mr Sudell’s arm was injured in the incident.

In June 2024, the dog was said to be out of control and grabbed a woman’s leg in Grays in Essex, but did not injure her.

Jack Fincham arrives at Basildon Crown Court (PA Wire)

Fincham, of Grays, lodged an appeal within hours of having been sentenced.

He was released on conditional bail on January 29 pending his appeal.

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 2024 for an unrelated driving matter in 2023.

It 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 instead ordered a three-month extension in the operational period of the suspended sentence order.

She did not alter the rest of the sentence.

Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer at a ‘Love Island’ photocall (Getty Images)

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, the judge warned the defendant he needed to be “very careful now”.