'Hero' dog PD Finn's law not working, says handler

A former police dog handler says a law to protect service animals is not being implemented properly.

"Finn's law" was named after German shepherd Finn, who suffered near-fatal injuries as he protected PC Dave Wardell from an attacker in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, in 2016.

Wardell, who is now retired, said handlers continued to struggle to secure prosecutions when their animals were attacked, adding that when they did happen the sentences were "too lenient".

A spokesperson for the judiciary said: "Judges and magistrates sentence according to the law set by Parliament and the sentencing guidelines set by the independent Sentencing Council."

Finn's law, known officially as the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Bill, was passed in 2019. It saw the possible maximum prison sentence for the most serious cases of animal cruelty in England and Wales increase to five years.

Yet Wardell said he had been contacted by about 20 dog handlers in the last 18 months, who were dismayed that the law had not been working to protect animals.

"If handlers even manage to secure a charge, the sentences that are passed are so low," he said.

"I know that getting maximum sentences is very hard, but we're not getting even six or nine-month sentences when some of these dogs have been horrifically attacked."

Wardell said he had been told of cases where offenders had been sentenced to 12-week, 10-week and four-week prison sentences after convictions for attacking service animals.

"We've had a four-week sentence handed out - it's almost like, why bother? Where is the deterrent factor in a four-week sentence?"

Wardell recently published an open letter to the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, on social media, questioning if he believed Finn's law was being applied "as Parliament intended".

Responding to Wardell's concerns, the Crown Prosecution Service said the matter was one for "the independent judiciary".

"We have no involvement in implementing sentences, we can only advise the sentencing judge or magistrate in line with existing sentencing guidelines."

Following the attack in 2016, Finn recovered and returned to duty. He retired in 2017, becoming the "poster dog" for the new law.

Wardell and Finn even appeared on ITV's Britain's Got Talent, reducing judge Simon Cowell to tears.

Finn died in 2023 at the age of 14 and a memorial to him was unveiled on the second anniversary of his death in Buntingford, Hertfordshire.

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