Samuel Price and Elizabeth Sandlin weren’t exactly a couple. Not in the traditional sense. They were a pair of attractive twentysomethings who, over the course of a year, met up now and again just to have sex with each other.

No strings attached, unless a bit of light bondage was on the cards.

This kind of sex connection is not uncommon and is known as ‘friends with benefits’ in polite society.

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Samuel Price (pictured left) and Elizabeth Sandlin (right) weren’t exactly a couple. They were a pair of attractive twentysomethings who, over the course of a year, met up now and again for sex with each other

In this modern age, a purely physical and non-emotional relationship like this is supposed to be a sophisticated answer to servicing basic needs.

Yet after a night together went wrong on Valentine’s Day last year, the failings in the practice defeated the advantages of the theory.

Price, 24, has been landed with a criminal conviction for assault after Sandlin, 20, complained to police about the roughness of the sex they had together.

On the night in question, they met up late in the evening after both had been drinking at separate functions: he at a wedding, she at a nightclub.

During sex in his bedroom at his family’s luxury farmhouse outside Chester, Price had pulled Sandlin’s hair and bit her on the thigh and bottom, leaving bruises.

In his court defence, he said that rough and playful sex had always been part of their relationship.

He has apologised and was horrified when he saw photographs of her two bruises — but Sandlin was not to be placated.

‘I trusted someone I should not have trusted. He was very drunk, blind drunk. He completely overstepped the mark. I was shocked,’ she said.

Today, however, the one who is truly shocked is Samuel Price, who cannot believe he now has a conviction.

And, to be honest, neither can I.

Yet this case is part of a growing trend, just another unhappy statistic in a week when it was revealed that convictions for violence against women have reached a record high.

Domestic abuse cases account for 14 per cent of all prosecutions going through the courts.

Nearly 100,000 criminal cases were launched against abusive partners last year, with a record 68,601 successful convictions.

Of course, much of this is to be hugely welcomed. A broadening of the definition of domestic abuse to include offences such as revenge porn and coercive control is a step in the right direction.

Record numbers of men being prosecuted for violent crimes against women, including rape and so-called honour-based violence, can only be viewed as a positive step.

Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has urged police and prosecutors to take crimes against women more seriously, while changes in the law have made it easier to prosecute men for domestic abuse.

New guidelines encourage the system to be more open-minded and consider that victims of domestic abuse are not just the stereotypical battered wife.

They are women, perhaps, like Elizabeth Sandlin. Aggrieved after a night out went wrong and not ashamed to push for her partner to be punished.

Domestic abuse was once a dirty secret, a shame that had to be borne in private by a battered wife or a violated girlfriend.

I’m glad those days have gone, but I worry that the mania for feminising the law — for whittling and shaping it to suit the concerns of noisy pressure groups — is resulting in skewing justice too far in the other direction.

In the Price/Sandlin case, if rough sex was an integral part of their relationship, then it must have been consensual.

Clearly on this particular night, matters went beyond what she expected or felt comfortable with, but he was in her words, ‘blind drunk’.

Perhaps she might have asked herself why she went to bed with someone who was so clearly out of control?

Price’s judgment was blurred — but so was hers. However, while she can use drink as an excuse, he cannot, because drunkenness can never be a defence for violence, even if it was unintended.

Jan Moir says in the Price/Sandlin case, if rough sex was an integral part of their relationship, then it must have been consensual (pictured: Miss Sandlin's bruises)

Yet from the unpromising beginnings of an alcohol-fuelled tryst that went awry, Elizabeth Sandlin wasted no time in going on to try to criminalise her sex-pal and claim victim status for herself. My worry is that the DPP, while encouraging justice officials to look for victims in the unlikeliest places, is going to make it too easy for an aggrieved partner to take to the courts on a whim.

Meanwhile, pornography is readily available and books such as the Fifty Shades Of Grey quartet normalise sadistic sex to the extent that housewives hold S&M-themed tea parties, complete with whip-shaped eclairs.

All this is confusing for young men and women — but especially for men.

Elizabeth Sandlin may have received justice for her bruises, but should this case ever have been brought?

Sensible women don’t jump into bed with men for a sex assignation, then complain if they don’t behave like Prince Charming.

Sensible women would develop a trusting relationship with a man before taking it to a more intimate level. But sense and perspective never seem to have a place in the sex wars.

Where are we going from here? Perhaps women will start to bring criminal charges if they don’t get full sexual satisfaction on demand.

DECENCY IS DYING JUST A LITTLE MORE EVERY DAY

Sometimes the world seems to take two steps forward and then six steps back. It is the casual lack of humanity and common decency that is so killing. Like the heroin addict travellers who were invited for tea by a couple in their 90s, then proceeded to rob them as the wife was baking them scones.

In West London, a woman and her 16-year-old daughter committed suicide by holding hands and jumping in front of a train.

Horror in the rush-hour? Not quite. Some on the platform viewed the tragedy as not much more than an interesting distraction on their commute. Train staff had to broadcast repeated requests for passengers to stop photographing the bodies. Selfies, too? I don’t doubt it.

Meanwhile, a former Sunday school teacher stole an antique toast rack from an Alzheimer’s sufferer and a coat from a partially blind lady while working as a carer.

Then two British schoolboys, supposedly on an educational trip to understand the horrors of World War II, were accused of stealing artefacts from Auschwitz. Perhaps they thought they could flog ’em on the internet?

What has happened to our morals? Pity we can’t buy them on eBay, too.

Poor The Queen! On her tour of Germany, HM was presented with a painting that looked as if it had been produced by a ham-fisted mass murderer in a high-security art class.

HM was presented with a painting that looked as if it had been produced by a ham-fisted mass murderer

‘Is that supposed to be my father?’ she asked, peering at the picture titled Horse In Royal Blue.

No wonder she was confused, considering he had no ankles and appeared to be wearing a pair of plus-fours that had been blown up by bellows. No, I don’t think it’s going to be hanging in the drawing room at Windsor any time soon.

BRADBY IS TV'S MR SMUG

In a U.S.-style shake-up of its flagship nightly news programme, ITV is turning the News At Ten into a star vehicle for smoothie-chops Tom Bradby.

The TV station bosses are labouring under the delusion that Bradby is incredibly popular with viewers, when perhaps the truth is that he is only incredibly popular with himself.

To be honest, I suspect most viewers find TB too glossy and self-satisfied in the brisk news environment.

In a U.S.-style shake-up of its flagship nightly news programme, ITV is turning the News At Ten into a star vehicle for smoothie-chops Tom Bradby (pictured)

In addition, he always looks as if he secretly dresses like Prince George when no one is looking. On the professional front, he is not as good a political editor as the BBC’s Nick Robinson and he’s not as good an anchorman as Mark Austin, whom he is replacing.

Meanwhile, ITV can expect stiff resistance to throwing showbiz razzmatazz at their news bulletins.

As far as British audiences are concerned, it’s all about the swirling currents, the stricken ship and what is looming on the horizon. It is never, ever about the anchor.

If you think eating bowls of cereal while driving in the middle lane is fine, don’t move to Spain. A driver in Salamanca has been fined £60 for ‘biting his nails’. The man was caught by the Guardia Civil mid-morning and his fine notice states he was ‘driving without maintaining proper freedom of movement’ because he was ‘biting his nails while at the wheel’. It is not known whether the driver intends to appeal — but who will be attracted to him, with his chewed fingernails, air of distraction and police record?

PUT HER IN QUARANTINE, JOHNNY

What is it with Amber Heard, the poor man’s Scarlett Johansson? She is one of those annoying wives who take on the mantle of their husband’s professional status, even when richly undeserved.

Indeed, marriage to Hollywood royalty Johnny Depp has made Amber behave like a preening queen of the screen, with a sense of entitlement way beyond her standing as the star of Drop Dead Sexy, Machete Kills and the new male stripper movie, Magic Mike XXL.

Le Grande Empress Amber has proclaimed that she and her husband will boycott Australia after a government minister threatened to have their dogs Pistol and Boo put down for flouting quarantine regulations.

‘I have a feeling we’re going to avoid the land Down Under from now on, just as much as we can, thanks to certain politicians there,’ simmered Amber.

What is it with Amber Heard, the poor man’s Scarlett Johansson? She is one of those annoying wives who take on the mantle of their husband’s professional status, even when richly undeserved

Poor Australia! An entire nation reels.

The couple were accused of unlawfully smuggling the dogs into Oz on a private plane last month, while Depp was filming the latest Pirates Of The Caribbean movie there.

Barnaby Joyce, an outspoken government minister, threatened to have the dogs killed, and declared there could not be another law for movie stars and their pets.

Australia has some of the strictest quarantine rules in the world — for a very good reason obvious to everyone except pampered movie stars. But Amber can only see the world in terms of the effect she is having on others.

Never mind the danger to the Australian ecosystem from her potentially germ-bomb teacup dogs, she blamed Mr Joyce for being a ‘brute’ and trying to claim his 15 minutes of fame at her expense.