A Chilliwack man was convicted of gun and drug charges last week after a Supreme Court justice dismissed his claim that he knew nothing about the five kilograms of pot laid out in an upstairs bedroom in the house he owned and was arrested in.

John Cyril Elsby was convicted of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, and of possessing and carelessly storing an unregistered rifle and shotgun. He was acquitted of six more counts related to ammunition and another gun found in his Cleveland Avenue house.

The five kilograms of pot and the guns were found in Elsby's home June 26, 2009, after police investigated a neighbour's report that a woman was entering the house via a window.

The house had been the site of a 2005 grow-op related fire and was the subject of a nooccupancy order. Elsby had already served time for drug charges related to the growop.

Police were welcomed at the door by a woman and a pit bull. The woman said she was alone, but Mounties spotted movement upstairs. When police entered the house, they were confronted by a strong smell of marijuana. As one Mountie scaled the stairs, he saw signs of a man. Police asked the person to come out, to which the man said, sharply, "No."

Eventually he acquiesced and police searched the home, turning up the pot, a rifle and a shotgun gun in the upstairs bedroom. A wallet belonging to Elsby was found on the bedroom's window sill.

Another gun and prohibited ammunition were found elsewhere in the home.

At his trial last year, Elsby said he was at the house to retrieve a stamp collection, his high school yearbooks, and some comic books. He said he didn't know of the pot or the guns until the police arrived and said he had misplaced his wallet.

His ex-girlfriend testified that she had found the pot earlier that week in a boating dock area at the end of Young Street near the Fraser River. She said she was riding her bike and picking up empty bottles in the area when she found four full bags of weed.

She told the court she loaded two bags on to her bike trailer, took them to her house, then returned to retrieve the other two bags.

But in her reasons for judgment, which were posted online Monday, Justice Elizabeth ArnoldBailey dismissed the testimony of both Elsby and his partner.

"The 5.1 kilograms of bud marijuana was spread out on a tarp over a sizeable area of the bedroom floor," she wrote. "The SKS rifle and the 12-gauge Featherlight shotgun were also in immediate proximity in plain view for all to see, including Mr Elsby."

She said that Elsby's denial could not reasonably be true.

"It is not credible that he simply misplaced his wallet and it was pure chance that it too was found in plain view in the upstairs bedroom," wrote Elsby.

And she said the idea that his partner found the pot abandoned by the river "is highly implausible and does not fit with common sense."

tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com