A Prince George man was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for harbouring a trove of handguns and ammunition in a stolen travel trailer.
Less credit for time served, Robert Daniel Davis, 31, will serve a further three years and 7 1/2 months.
He was the subject of an Oct. 11, 2018 takedown on a Poplar Place property in which RCMP seized five handguns and two shotguns, two of which were loaded and three with their serial numbers erased, along with 11 boxes of various ammunition and over 200 loose rounds .
The number of guns and volume ammunition led provincial court judge Cassandra Malfair to comment that it could be "fairly characterized as an arsenal" of weapons that posed a significant risk to public safety. Moreover, he had been subject to a prohibition from owning firearms from a previous conviction.
By the time of his arrest, Davis was high on the RCMP's radar. He was out on bail facing a series of firearms and theft-related charges from a series of arrests and had disappeared from the home where he had been requested to reside.
As well, the day before police came across an abandoned pickup truck that turned out to be his mother's, with Davis' identification and a shotgun found inside.
Police eventually went to his mother's home and found the travel trailer parked on her driveway. Davis would not answer when police knocked on the doors or windows despite RCMP seeing movement within the trailer.
RCMP asked Davis' mother to text her son and urge him to surrender. When she did, Davis told her to lie and say he was out of town in camp and would turn himself in upon returning.
An emergency response team was called in and Davis' girlfriend gave herself up. On the way to the detachment, she told RCMP Davis was hiding underneath the bed.
After some time, Davis came out and surrendered without incident.
Davis has had a long history of drug use and had fallen back into those ways at the time of his arrest. It put him into a circle of "dangerous people" and he was holding the guns for others, Davis has claimed through his counsel.
In sentencing Davis, Malfair agreed to a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels. Although at the low end of the scale, Malfair found the submission was still in the public interest.
Davis had pleaded guilty to seven charges from the incident at his mother's home. The sentence also includes concurrent terms for the other outstanding offences for which Davis had pleaded guilty to an array of charges.
