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A Chilliwack property owner was acquitted in Chilliwack Supreme Court Friday of a five-year-old drug charge concerning a grow-op found on his Rosedale area property.

While Justice Brian Joyce said there were elements of the case he found "troubling," he ultimately ruled that the Crown relied on too much circumstantial evidence against Sean William Doak. "I am left with a reasonable doubt that he had knowledge of and exercise over the marijuana operation," he said in court Friday morning.

The Crown had argued there were fresh bananas and bills piling up at a main residence on a property at 51404 Nevin Rd., indicating Doak could still have been living at the house at the time.

"We have the daily clutter of life in this house," Crown counsel Simon Thomson told the court earlier in the week. "Who would go into a vacant house and leave bananas?"

Police searched the property on July 9, 2003 after conducting surveillance on the site. In one location, they found 503 plants and another 473 in a different. The plants were in various stages of budding.

The defence position was that Doak had rented a shed or shop as well as a cottage-type building on the site to another man, who testified at trial that he was the one operating the marijuana operation and who had set up an electrical bypass. Another key argument was that Doak had split from his wife, who moved to Alberta, while he had moved in with his brother. Justice Joyce pointed that while Doak had not completed all changes of address, he had notified a bail supervisor on another criminal matter that he was staying with his brother rather than at his house.

Doak argued he was not living at the property at the time, he was there on the day of the search because he was attending to a problem with the sewer line.

Joyce also noted that while there was a small quantity of marijuana found in the main residence, there was no evidence it was linked to the growing operations in the property's outbuildings.

Despite dismissing charges against Doak, Justice Joyce had permitted evidence against Doak to be entered at trial earlier this year. In September, Doak made an application to throw out any evidence found in the main residence during the police search, but the judge found this to be admissible.