A B.C. man who pleaded guilty on drug charges to protect his common-law wife from prosecution says she's now confessed that she reported his marijuana grow-op to police.

Roy Valdemar Sundstrom was handed a 15-month conditional sentence and told to forfeit his $600,000 home in 2008 after copping a guilty plea to charges of producing a controlled substance.

The plea was part of a bargain with Crown prosecutors -- if Sundstrom admitted guilt, all charges would be stayed against his partner of 11 years, Irene Cornelius.

But according to an affidavit filed by Sundstrom with the B.C. Court of Appeal, Cornelius wrote to her ex while the couple was going through a divorce last year and told him that she had "turned him in to the police."

In a decision on Wednesday, the province's highest court granted Sundstrom the right to proceed with an appeal of his conviction, despite the face that the 30-day limit for an appeal has already passed.

"This may be one of those cases where, as [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Brandeis famously stated, ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant,'" Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick wrote in her decision.

Police raided Sundstrom's home on the Sunshine Coast in 2006, based on information from a confidential informant who told police that an underground grow-op on the property was producing $25,000 worth of drugs each month.

When police arrived at the property, Sundstrom was home, but not Cornelius -- she turned herself in to authorities later. Both were charged with production and possession of marijuana.

After the arrests, Sundstrom says that Cornelius regularly implored him to plead guilty so that she would be spared.

Once he agreed to take the bullet, the relationship began to fall apart until it deteriorated entirely.

It wasn't until his sentence had been served that Sundstrom says he learned of his ex-partner's role in his arrest, and that she had promised investigators she would not be at the house when they searched it.

"I feel that being kept in the dark by the Crown, police and by Irene compromised my thinking and did not allow me to fully understand the circumstances surrounding my arrest, prosecution and eventual guilty plea," Sundstrom wrote in his affidavit.

His lawyer, Kirk Tousaw, told ctvbc.ca that Sundstrom has had a "rough go" since his conviction.

Sundstrom has already served his sentence, but an appeal on the forfeiture of his property has allowed him to keep his home for now.

"He obviously can't get those 15 months of his life back," Tousaw said. "The whole process has been difficult for him, from start to finish."

If Sundstrom wins his appeal, Tousaw says he plans to set aside his guilty plea and be retried in court.