Star Weekly is looking back at some of the biggest stories from 2023, this is one of them.
May 31
May 18 should’ve been a happy day for Point Cook’s Michael Andrew.
It was the day 58-year-old James Balcombe was jailed for up to 11 years for a series of arson attacks on rival jumping castle businesses.
Michael Andrew’s A&A Jumping Castles in Hoppers Crossing was one of them.
“Ours was the only one burnt to the ground, ” he said of the blaze in the early hours of January 12, 2017, which completely destroyed the business Andrew and his wife Aline established in the early 2000’s .
“In total we lost $1.2 million and we never got nothing back.”
It’s a turn of events that would have most ordinary people filled with rage and bent on revenge, but as soon becomes apparent, Mr Andrew isn’t an ordinary person.
“Not really,” he said flatly when asked if Balcombe’s conviction and sentence gave him any satisfaction.
“I got nothing to say to him, nothing against him.
“ I guess I’m a weird bloke” he laughed, before adding, “I move on.“
He sure does.
In fact Mr Andrew began moving on almost as soon as he received the 1am phone call informing him of what had happened.
“An hour after the fire I realised it was only stuff.
“How many hearses do you see on the way to a funeral with a trailer on the back with all your stuff?”
If Mr Andrew wasn’t worried about stuff or his sudden lack of it, many others in the jumping castle industry were.
“Victorian amusement businesses turned up with equipment and keys to their factories to keep us going, ” said Mr Andrew of his competitor’s generosity which allowed him to keep operating; ironic given it was another competitor who started the fire in an attempt to put him out of business.
Mr Andrew had never heard of Balcombe and his company Awesome Party Hire until learning he was the behind the fire at his and numerous other jumping castle businesses across Victoria.
‘He was jealous and he wanted to be on top of Google so he thought he might burn us down to get on top,” said Mr Andrew of Balcombe’s motive.
Jealous he might’ve been, but a criminal mastermind Balcombe wasn’t.
CCTV footage clearly showed a case of arson and Balcombe was eventually given up by a man he’d employed to set fire to his own business in an attempt to distract police.
Meanwhile Mr Andrew soldiered on with borrowed equipment before COVID-19 finally finished him off.
“We couldn’t re-coup our losses,” said the 69-year-old who now juggles jumping castle repairs with work in childcare.
It’s a change Mr Andrew seems almost grateful to Balcombe for inadvertently bringing about.
“It sorta did me a favour because I worked seven days a week.
“ It gave me a wake up call to go home for a change, not just work and work.”
