A playwright and arts administrator has been jailed for 16 years by Mr Justice Henry Abbott for raping a woman following a drugs and alcohol party in his Drogheda flat.
Francis Condra (46), of Upper Magdelene Street, Drogheda, a former member of the Irish Army and a father of a teenage daughter, was found guilty in February by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of raping and falsely imprisoning the woman on November 8th, 2003.
The victim told the jury that she met Condra in a local pub where she had gone to try and organise "a lunar event" and had accepted his invitation with some others to go back to his flat where she said he produced "a tin of weed" and told them all "to help themselves".
"Everyone there was smoking cannabis," she said and exercised her legal right on day-three of the trial not to tell the jury if she brought cannabis resin to the party. She said she smoked some 'joints' with the others and they drank Condra's "medieval mead" which she described as "horrible".
Condra originally pleaded not guilty to four charges of rape, false imprisonment, aggravated sexual assault, and assault causing harm to her but changed his plea on day-six of his 11-day trial to guilty of aggravated sexual assault and assault causing her harm.
The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on the false imprisonment count following three hours deliberation and by an 11-1 majority on the rape charge after almost six hours deliberation.
Mr Justice Abbott, who also certified Condra as a registered sex offender, said the rape charge set the tone for sentencing in this case as there were a series of rapes at the upper end of the scale with "a lot of savage violence and continuous threats of death" involved.
He said that Condra therefore deserved "a sentence just short of the maximum" and imposed 16 years for rape, with eight years for aggravated sexual assault, and three years each for assault causing harm and false imprisonment, all to run concurrent.
Mr Justice Abbott said Condra had many chances to have insight into his behaviour from his own rehabilitation and previous brushes with the law and the court couldn't accept that he mightn't offend again.
Detective Garda Seamus Nolan told prosecuting counsel, Mr Tom O'Connell SC (with Mr Garnet Orange BL), that in 22 years in An Garda Siochana he had never come across a sexual assault of such barbarity.