Bouncy castle baron James Balcombe’s shock reason for firebombing rivals

A burning obsession for success led a bouncy castle baron to orchestrate a shocking firebombing campaign to destroy his rivals.

In seconds competitors of James Balcombe had their livelihoods reduced to ash.

The 57-year-old orchestrated arson attacks on rival party hire and bouncy castle businesses between December 2016 and March 2017.

He pleaded guilty to 11 counts of conspiracy to commit arson and appeared at a pre-sentence hearing at Victoria’s County Court on Wednesday.

Balcombe enlisted three men - including a former employee at his business - and paid them $2000 to firebomb businesses at Tullamarine, Hoppers Crossing, Warragul, Keysborough and other locations.

The court was told he did not light any blazes but had “other people do his dirty work for him”.

His victims were left to pick up the pieces.

“Eight seconds is all it took to destroy 18 years of our livelihood,” Aline Andrew said in a statement aired in court on Wednesday.

She and her husband Michael Andrew ran A & A Jumping Castles and their Hoppers Crossing facility was destroyed in one of the attacks.

The couple started the business in the 90s and never met Balcombe before their award-winning business was crippled because of the blaze. They later closed the business after running it at a reduced scale.

“The horror, shock and disbelief (that) this has happened to us will be forever etched in our minds, a sickening and tragic event that we can never unsee,” Ms Andrew said.

Her husband Michael Andrew said all his years of hard work was taken away from him.

“It was taken away from us, 18 years of hard work gone up in flames,” he said.

Business owner Andrew Saliba who runs Xtreme Party Hire had several of his properties targeted and his fear for his family became so intense he kept fire extinguishers at his home, the court was told.

“I myself spent hours looking at cameras and waiting for these attackers to strike at any time,” he said.

But he said in a statement he believed Balcombe’s “passion” from day one was to put him out of business.

The campaign ended when Balcombe ordered an attack on his own premises at Kangaroo Ground to “deflect suspicion”, according to prosecutors.

His defence lawyer Simon Kenny said the bouncy castle boss wasn’t successful until he started the party hire company.

“He became obsessed with being the best, became obsessed with outdoing his rivals,” Mr Kenny told the court.

He said his client was far from a “sophisticated criminal mastermind” and that the attacks he instigated were “amateurish”.

The court was told he was diagnosed with a personality disorder and alcohol abuse disorder.

Ahead of a trial in 2018 Balcombe failed to turn up to court and submitted a doctor’s letter to explain why he wasn’t there which was later found to be fake, the court was told.

He was nabbed using an alias in Western Australia two years later when federal police started investigating a fake stamp scheme, which he pleaded guilty to and was fined for.

Judge Stewart Bayles will sentence at a later date.