SINGAPORE, Nov 2 — He was to have been released on Nov 10 for home detention, but Metro scion Ong Jenn will have to stay behind bars for longer.
Yesterday, a High Court judge allowed an appeal by the prosecution to extend his “manifestly inadequate” two-year sentence to three years.
Ong, 43, a business development manager with Metro Holdings and whose grandfather Ong Tjoe Kim founded department store chain Metro, is serving his jail sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of attempted possession of controlled drugs — 92.68g of cannabis and 385.1g of cannabis mixture.
In May last year, he admitted to the charges of attempted possession of controlled drugs after a six-day trial, and was acquitted of attempted trafficking charges.
The prosecution appealed against the conviction and the sentence.
Last month, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng dismissed the appeal against the conviction and against Ong's reduced charges, to rule that he should not be convicted of abetting to traffic drugs.
As for the appeal against the sentence, Justice Hoo agreed with the prosecution’s proposed “linear” sentencing approach when delivering her grounds of decision yesterday.
The prosecution, led by chief prosecutor Kow Keng Siong, had proposed a “starting peg” of six months for up to 1g of cannabis or cannabis mixture, and an upper limit of seven years, or 84 months, for any weight from 500g of cannabis and 1,000g for cannabis mixture and above.
The appropriate sentence is then calibrated according to the weight of the controlled drugs.
In Ong’s case, this means that for attempted possession of cannabis, he should be getting 20 months’ jail, while for the cannabis mixture, his jail sentence should be about three years, said Kow.
Hoo said that the details of this linear approach “may require further consideration in an appropriate case”, but she agreed with the proposed starting points arrived in Ong’s case.
However, Ong’s lawyer, senior counsel Tan Chee Meng, disagreed with the prosecution’s “change of position”.
“There is no principle to (impose a starting peg of six months),” said Tan yesterday.
“It is reverse-engineered to try and get the 36 months... and they are telling the court to ignore all mitigating factors.”
Tan pointed to his client’s plea of guilt to the reduced charges, as well as how Ong had given up his drug addiction, and was doing volunteer work to encourage others to do so.
The lawyer added that an extension of Ong’s sentence would have a “crushing and devastating” effect on him, especially as he was due to be released on home detention in slightly over a week.
However, Justice Hoo disagreed with District Judge Jasvender Kaur’s earlier sentencing that Ong should be granted a “one-third discount” in his sentence.
While Ong had pleaded guilty to the attempted possession charges, there was “strong evidence” against him, therefore this plea of guilt should not be given significant weight, she said.
Hoo added that Ong giving up his addiction did not hold much mitigating value.
“His rehabilitation and other efforts were made only after his arrest, and must be viewed against the almost 20-year history of drug consumption,” she added.
Thus, she agreed with the prosecution that there was no reason for a “downward adjustment” in Ong’s sentence.
The High Court judge also agreed with the prosecution’s stance that Ong’s drug consumption habits had not been “sufficiently taken into account” by the lower-court judge.
“He did not have any antecedents simply because the law had not yet caught up with him,” Hoo said, adding that Ong should not be treated as a first-time offender.
She also noted that there was “considerable latent risk” of the drugs ending up in others’ hands.
“The larger the quantity of drugs and the longer the time an offender is in possession, the higher the latent risk of this,” she said. — TODAY
