Love Island star Jack Fincham wins appeal in dangerous dog case

A former Love Island star who was handed a six-week jail term for dangerous dog offences has won an appeal against his sentence.

In September 2022, Jack Fincham’s dog, a black cane corso called Elvis, bit a runner in Swanley in Kent and then in June 2024 the dog attacked a woman in Grays, Essex.

He admitted two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog and was sentenced at Southend Magistrates’ Court on 29 January this year.

The 32-year-old, from Grays, has now won the appeal at Basildon Crown Court against his prison sentence and walked free from court, but with a three-month extension added to a suspended prison sentence he had been given for an unrelated driving offence.

At the sentencing at Southend Magistrates’ Court in January, Fincham lodged an appeal within hours, and was released on conditional bail pending that appeal.

At the latest hearing in Basildon, a judge extended an existing 12-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, which had been imposed for an unrelated driving matter in 2023.

That sentence included an offence of drug-driving and the fraudulent use of a registration mark.

Judge Samantha Leigh found the activation, by magistrates earlier in 2025, of a suspended sentence order for an unrelated driving matter “wasn’t just in the circumstances”. She instead imposed a three-month extension to the suspended sentence’s time period, raising it to 21 months.

At Southend Magistrates’ Court, Fincham had also been ordered to pay £3,680, including £2,000 in contributions to kennelling costs, a fine of £961 and compensation of £200 to Robert Sudell, who was the runner bitten in Kent.

Richard Cooper, for Fincham, said the incident in Grays happened while he had been bringing boxes into a property which he had just moved to and the dog had slipped out.

The 32-year-old attended a voluntary police interview the same month 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 in August 2024 police had attended a hotel and found the dog had been in the public pool area and was not on a lead or muzzled.

Mr Cooper said Fincham “wanted to take his dog somewhere it would have a little more freedom so found online this hotel specifically marketed itself as dog-friendly” and believed he could let the dog off the lead.

His solicitor said Fincham had “returned to a nine-to-five job” and also started boxing again.

During the re-sentencing, the judge warned the defendant he needed to be “very careful now”.