The dark underbelly of the bouncy castle industry has been exposed this week after a business owner was jailed for ordering a string of arson attacks on his rivals.
James Balcombe, 58, was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to 11 charges of conspiracy to commit arson against rival bouncy castle bosses in the party hire business.
Balcombe was already a mainstay of the party hire business with his company Awesome Party Hire, which he founded in 2006, but in 2011 he decided to branch out into bouncy castles, and that’s when he devised a plot to burn down the competition (literally).
He paid off two men, Craig Anderson and Peter Smith, to torch multiple bouncy castle firms in exchange for AUD $2,000 (£1,000) per attack. Balcombe even ordered an arson attack on his own business in order to deflect suspicion. Genius! Or not…
Judge Stewart Bayles said:
You told them you wanted the jumping castles affected so the other companies wouldn’t be making money.
It consumed your every waking moment and you were continually thinking of ways to maximise and advance your business.
You wanted to eliminate your competition so you would succeed, your business being the number one business in the industry.
One of the attacks, which were started by lighting fuel or Molotov cocktails, destroyed 100 bouncy castles at uninsured firm A&A Jumping Castles, ending the business and totally destroying the livelihood of the owner. Mission accomplished as far as Balcombe was concerned.
In the end, Balcombe’s arsonists-for-hire were busted and promptly grassed him up, and everyone rightly went to jail. Balcombe’s own lawyer, Simon Kenny, described the attacks as ‘amateurish, short-sighted and unsophisticated’, although it’s funny to think that Balcombe was running some kind of high-level Bouncy Castle Cartel.
Goes to show, just because you’re supplying fun times to kids’ birthday parties, doesn’t mean your industry isn’t dodgy AF.
To watch a man try to burn down a UK synagogue but accidentally firebomb himself instead, click HERE. Whoops.
