![\"Firefighters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4ad7c46381cf4e8bad4e890751d64bcf.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA jury has heard a former publican allegedly set fire to a historic hotel after increasing the contents insurance premium months earlier.<\/p>\n
David Robert Culican has pleaded not guilty to a charge of dishonestly damaging property by fire or explosive for gain, and an alternative charge of damaging property to the value of more than $15,000, relating to the incident at the Globe Hotel in Bombala on June 25, 2022.<\/p>\n
Mr Culican faced the first day of a jury trial at Queanbeyan District Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The court heard the 42-year-old took over the building’s lease in 2019 and lived on-site with “many of his personal belongings” at the time of the fire.<\/p>\n
In her opening address, a solicitor appearing for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions alleged the Campbelltown man was struggling financially due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and a competing hospitality venue in town.<\/p>\n
“The accused’s profits were heading out the door at a rate the accused couldn’t seem to stop,” Crown prosecutor Ms Mackenzie told the court.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Mr Culican increased the contents insurance claim for the pub from $180,000 to $480,000 in November 2021, which prosecutors alleged “created an incentive” to destroy the contents of the property.<\/p>\n
“He [Mr Culican] could walk away with a handy little insurance payout. That’s what we say was his financial gain,” Ms Mackenzie alleged.<\/p>\n
Mr Culican was allegedly captured on CCTV footage “wearing a balaclava and also carrying a blowtorch” before getting into his nearby vehicle about 4:13am on the morning of the fire.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The trial heard it took hours for authorities to put out the blaze in June 2022. (Supplied: Fire and Rescue NSW Station 230)<\/p>\n
The court heard he could be seen on CCTV footage “moving large amounts of personal items” around the pub on the night of the fire.<\/p>\n
“The accused denied lighting the fire and suggested it could have been caused by a gas heater,” Ms Mackenzie told the court.<\/p>\n
A Triple Zero (000) call was made to authorities at 4:19am when nearby campers, who gave evidence to the trial on Tuesday, awoke to the fire.<\/p>\n
Pub demolished\u00a0<\/p>\n
The building, which was built in 1857 and located on Bombala’s main street, had to be demolished after it was destroyed.<\/p>\n
During his opening address, Mr Culican’s defence barrister, Richard Thomas, told the jurors to wait to consider all expert evidence before making a judgement on the cause of the fire.<\/p>\n
“You can’t get away from the central issue, the cause of the fire,” Mr Thomas said.<\/p>\n
“There were a range of possible accidental causes for the fire.<\/p>\n
“No-one is going to come here and give evidence that they saw David light the fire.”<\/p>\n
Mr Thomas told the court that Mr Culican increased the insurance premium because the building had been taken over by new owners, who needed an updated premium done.<\/p>\n
“He’d invested quite a lot in the property and that wasn’t reflected in the insurance policy,” Mr Thomas told the court.<\/p>\n
The defence also dismissed claims that the business was struggling and said Mr Culican was moving items around the pub in preparation for a potential upcoming lease change.<\/p>\n
A series of witnesses are expected to give evidence across the trial before Judge David Scully, which is anticipated to run for 10 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A jury has heard a former publican allegedly set fire to a historic hotel after increasing the contents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,315468,315469,37958,48756,315472,259845,315470,315473,315471,85],"class_list":["post-652221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bombala","tag-bombala-pub","tag-cctv","tag-court-trial","tag-david-culican","tag-jury-trial","tag-pub-arson","tag-pub-fire","tag-queanbeyan-district-court","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}