A party hire business owner who concocted a plan to target his jumping castle industry rivals with a string of arson attacks has been sentenced to more than a decade behind bars.
The County Court of Victoria heard James Balcombe, 58, was motivated by an obsessive desire to outdo his competitors when he paid his co-offenders to firebomb their businesses across industrial Melbourne in late 2016 and early 2017.
Many of the fires, lit with fuel or Molotov cocktails, failed to take hold or incurred only minor damage.
But one attack destroyed more than 100 jumping castles and caused extensive damage, destroying the livelihood of the business's owner.
Balcombe later instructed one of his co-offenders to set his own business alight, a move Judge Stewart Bayles on Thursday said was seemingly driven by an attempt to deflect suspicion and lodge an insurance claim.
The 58-year-old's lawyer, Simon Kenny, said it was accepted that Balcombe was the instigator of the attacks and submitted that the offending was "amateurish, short-sighted and unsophisticated".
Balcombe received an 11-year prison sentence after earlier pleading guilty to 11 charges of conspiracy to commit arson.
Balcombe adopted false name after plot discovered, court hears
The court heard Balcombe entered the party hire industry in about 2006, eventually expanding his operation to jumping castle hire in 2011 after learning it was a lucrative industry.
The strategy worked, with Justice Bayles saying Balcombe "never experienced such success in business before" or the kind of money that allowed him to buy a bigger premises for his enterprise, Awesome Party Hire.
The court heard Balcombe met with two men called Craig Anderson and Peter Smith in late 2016, instructing them to burn two addresses in Werribee and Tullamarine to the ground.
"You told them you wanted the jumping castles affected so the other companies wouldn't be making money," Justice Bayles said, addressing Balcombe in court.
The men were offered $2,000 for each address and told more would follow, the court heard.
Smith pulled out after the first two attacks, but further incidents followed a similar pattern, being carried out in industrial areas at night and aided on about four occasions by a getaway driver.
Balcombe, unhappy when the attempts failed to cause significant damage, would sometimes instruct those carrying out the attacks to return to the same businesses a second and even third time.
The court heard the fire at an uninsured Hoppers Crossing business called A&A Jumping Castles engulfed all of its owner's equipment and belongings, and required almost $1.5 million in repair works.
Another attack, carried out by an unknown co-offender, wrongly targeted a neighbouring property but only caused minimal damage.
Some of Balcombe's own equipment went up in flames when he instructed Anderson to set it alight on 6 March, 2017.
Anderson, Smith and a third person were arrested in the following days, with the court hearing the three men made full admissions and Anderson and Smith nominated Balcombe at the instigator.
Balcombe's arrest soon followed, and he was charged and bailed the same month.
However, an arrest warrant was issued when he failed to appear at a December 2018 bail hearing, and Justice Bayles said he was later found in Perth having taken a false name and several steps "to alter your appearance and adopt a false identity".
The judge said he was extradited for arraignment in October 2021 before a plea hearing in June 2022.
Offender 'fixated' on business success
In sentencing on Thursday, Justice Bayles said Balcombe's offending had caused "significant loss, suffering and emotional trauma".
He said the attack on A&A Jumping Castles was career-ending for the business's owners, who had to close up shop even after drawing from their savings to try to keep it going.
The court heard from a defence material saying that Balcombe suffered from several psychological disorders and had become "completely fixated" on his business success at the time of his offending.
"It consumed your every waking moment and you were continually thinking of ways to maximise and advance your business," the judge said.
"You wanted to eliminate your competition so you would succeed, your business being the number one business in the industry."
The judge took into account Balcombe's guilty plea after his extradition, and his lawyer's suggestion that the offender intended to engage in treatment.
Some parts of the 58-year-old's sentences for the 11 charges will be served cumulatively for an 11-year sentence, with a non-parole period set at 7 years and 10 months.
