Playwright who raped woman during ‘barbaric’ attack is driven out of prison

Our pictures show how staff at the prison allowed the driver of a 07 registered Hyundai to reverse in past the main gates to pick the predator up – allowing him to scurry into the vehicle through a rear door and avoid having his picture taken.

Sources say the pervert, who is officially homeless, is believed to have returned home to his native Drogheda.

The beast, who has grown his hair long, converted to Islam while serving his sentence.

It’s understood he goes under the name Hasan Selim.

In April of 2006, Condra was jailed for 16 years for raping a woman after a drugs party in his flat.

His victim told how she met Condra in a local pub where she had gone to try and organise “a lunar event.”

She and some others were invited back to Condra’s flat where he produced “a tin of weed” and told them all “to help themselves”.

“Everyone there was smoking cannabis,” she said. The woman smoked some “joints” with the others and they drank Condra’s “medieval mead”.

The victim’s ordeal began when she was preparing to leave Condra’s flat to go home at about 2am.

She was bending over to get her bag when Condra grabbed her and dragged her by the hair into his bedroom, thumped her, threw her on the bed, and said he was going to rape her.

He then started pulling off her clothes and she described how Condra then continually raped her, punched her on the face and called her a “whore” and a “bitch”.

She said she was screaming and begging him to stop.

She said she tried to call the gardai on her mobile phone while Condra was out of the bedroom but he returned and grabbed the phone from her when she told him she was trying to call a taxi.

He told her she would “pay for that”, said he would kill her, and went to the kitchen where he got a long-bladed knife which he held to her throat. He then cut her with it and she also cut her hand trying to push the knife away.

“Blood was flying everywhere,” she said. Each time she asked him to stop, he hit her.

She claimed the attack continued until about 7am.

Garda Nigel McInaw said the woman appeared to have injuries and bruising consistent with an assault when she arrived at the station after 7.30am. She didn’t seem to realise the extent of her injuries.

He called an ambulance to bring her to the Lourdes Hospital from where she was transferred to the Rotunda Rape Treatment Centre.

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 and by an 11-1 majority on the rape charge.

Mr Justice Henry Abbott, certified Condra as a registered sex offender.

He said 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.

Condra therefore deserved “a sentence just short of the maximum”. He imposed 16 years for rape, eight years for aggravated sexual assault, and three years each for assault causing harm and false imprisonment, all to run concurrently.

Condra was formerly a member of the Irish Army.

Det Gda Seamus Nolan told Condra’s sentencing hearing that in 22 years in the force he had never come across a sexual assault of such barbarity.

Garda McInaw said Condra developed a drink and drugs addiction during which he “fell into bad company” after leaving the army.

He burgled the home of Dundalk woman Margaret McDonnell (86) in November 1996.

He also participated in an armed robbery of the Readypenny Inn pub four months later during which a woman was kidnapped.

Det Nolan said Condra was jailed for these offences in 1998, getting six years.

While in Mountjoy Jail he wrote and produced a play which was acclaimed.

The balance of his sentence was suspended in 2000 and he moved back to Drogheda where he became involved with the Droichead Arts Centre.

Defence counsel Anthony Sammon said Condra regretted what he had done.