SINGAPORE — A High Court judge on Monday (Oct 15) dismissed the prosecution’s appeal against Metro family scion Ong Jenn, agreeing with a District Court ruling that he should not be convicted of abetting to traffic in drugs.

Ong, a business development manager with Metro Holdings, is serving a two-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of attempted possession of controlled drugs.

Arguing that the 43-year-old should be convicted of the original charges of abetting to traffic controlled drugs, the prosecution appealed against his reduced charges as well as the sentence imposed on those reduced charges.

On May 12 last year, Ong admitted to the attempted possession of controlled drugs charges after a six-day trial. Back then, District Judge Jasvender Kaur agreed with Ong’s argument that the drugs — 92.68g of cannabis and 385.1g of cannabis mixture — were solely for his own consumption.

Among the range of reasons provided in their appeal, the prosecution argued that the “sheer quantity” of drugs in Ong’s possession “gives rise to the inference” that he had ordered from his supplier Mohamad Ismail Abdul Majid for the purposes of trafficking.

Ismail was arrested on Oct 30, 2014 before he could deliver the drugs, and Ong, who agreed to buy 500g of the drugs at S$5,000, was arrested a day later. Ong was also found to have 360g of the same drugs in his possession.

The prosecution also argued that Ong — the grandson of Ong Tjoe Kim, founder of department store chain Metro — had given “wildly conflicting accounts of his (drug) consumption rate”. During the trial at the District Court, Ong’s claims of his personal consumption rates varied from 50g to 350g a month.

Furthermore, based on Ong’s purported consumption rate, the prosecution contended that the total quantity would be “grossly in excess” of his own consumption needs.

They added that phone text messages between Ong and two female friends showed that he agreed to sell or share the cannabis with them.

However, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng said on Monday that the lower court had carefully considered these matters.

In setting out her decision, she noted that Ong was a long-term drug addict, having been diagnosed to have a cannabis dependence disorder — a fact that was not challenged by the prosecution.

And while there were “inconsistencies” in Ong’s evidence of his consumption rate, the High Court judge said that the prosecution had failed to challenge the evidence at trial.

Using the “unchallenged evidence” that the trial judge had relied on — about 350g per month — Justice Hoo pointed out that the drugs, and the additional drugs would have lasted him more than two months.

“While this might be somewhat of a stockpile, there was no evidence that this was well beyond his consumption needs,” she said.

With regard to the messages that Ong sent to his two female friends, Justice Hoo noted that the two women were not called as witnesses to prove an intention to traffic drugs, and their messages were “adduced only in the cross-examination”.

Saying that there “was some difficulty” in linking the messages to the drugs in question, Justice Hoo said: “I agree with the trial judge that the abetment of trafficking charges had not been made out.”

She added: “As the trial judge observed, (Ong) was a heavy (cannabis) user, and had the means to purchase the drugs for his own consumption.”

The prosecution’s appeal against Ong’s sentence is still pending, with the case to be heard again on Nov 1.