The devastated ex-husband of an heiress to a Sri Lankan tea empire has said the only time he has seen his autistic sons since she went on the run with them was on TV.
Nishika Samaratunga, a 34-year-old British citizen originally from Sri Lanka, is believed to be hiding the whereabouts of the couple’s two children – Blaine, five, and Nathaniel, three.
The boys were born in the US and were being cared for by their father, Ben Baier, who lives near Denver, Colorado.
Mr Baier, a 43-year-old American financier, was given full custody of his sons last October after a legal battle with his ex-wife, Ms Samaratunga, after they separated the year before.
Blaine and Nathaniel visited their mother in the UK, after she moved back to London, as part of a court-ordered visit following their parents’ divorce.
However Ms Samaratunga failed to return the boys, who are both autistic, to Mr Baier on March 29, sparking an international manhunt.
In July it was reported that she was believed to be hiding the children somewhere in the UK but Mr Baier has said he doesn’t know which country they are in.
He has now revealed that the only time he has seen them since was on TV as he fears for their safety.
Nishika Samaratunga, a 34-year-old British citizen originally from Sri Lanka, is believed to have kidnapped her two ‘vulnerable’ children and has not been seen with them since March
Five-year-old Blaine Baier and three-year-old Nathaniel Baier, known as Nate, were born in the US and were being cared for by their father, Ben Baier, who lives near Denver, Colorado
Mr Baier told The Times: ‘I allow myself days just to break down, cry and clean out the gutters.
‘I try not to look at pictures and videos too often because my therapist says that it is almost like emotional cutting.’
He added: ‘This is hard to say but the only reason I know that the boys are still alive is that she put a video out on Sri Lankan news of my oldest, Blaine, crying into the camera.’
Ms Samaratunga is the great-granddaughter of Sri Lankan entrepreneur Noel Servulus Oswald (NSO) Mendis.
In 1956, he purchased Ceylon tea producer Mackwoods, making him the first Sri Lankan to acquire a British plantation company.
The conglomerate, which now covers healthcare, energy, IT and tourism, remains within the family today.
On her LinkedIn profile, Ms Samaratunga states that she is a director at Mackwoods.
Mr Baier has begun High Court proceedings to try to secure his sons’ return with his lawyers raising concerns that they do not appear to be attending school or nursery and are not receiving medical care.
Ms Samaratunga is a tea company heiress and recruitment consultant for financial services
‘Both our children have autism, and such abrupt changes to their routine are incredibly damaging to their development and health,’ Mr Baier said
A US judge is concerned they are ‘vulnerable’ and ‘in imminent danger’.
The US court also raised concerns that Ms Samaratunga could abduct the boys so she was only permitted to have contact with them in London.
Mr Baier previously said: ‘The collapse of my marriage has been an incredibly trying time.
‘But I never believed that Nishika would abduct Blaine and Nathaniel and then conceal their whereabouts in an effort to keep them from me, uprooting them from their home in Colorado.
‘Both our children have autism, and such abrupt changes to their routine are incredibly damaging to their development and health.
‘I’m calling for her to do the right thing and return them to me so they can return to their life as normal, and for anyone who knows where they are to help return them to their home. I can only pray for their safe return.’
The High Court has allowed the publication of the family’s names and pictures to help locate the children in a special dispensation.
The former couple married in 2020, and Ms Samaratunga moved to the US, but their relationship broke down in 2024.
A US judge is concerned ‘the children are in imminent danger’
The mother then applied to a Colorado court to relocate the children to London in August last year, but returned to the UK the following month after this was refused.
She made further requests to relocate the children, but a Colorado court ordered in October that Mr Baier become their sons’ primary custodial parent.
While the US-based court ordered the children must remain in the state, it also ordered Mr Baier to take the children to England on regular visits so they could spend time with Ms Samaratunga.
The first visit took place between December and January.
But when Mr Baier went to the airport to take his sons back to the US following the second visit in March, Ms Samaratunga failed to return them, in breach of the order of the Colorado court.
The High Court in London has since issued orders against several companies to trace Ms Samaratunga, including JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Thames Water and the NHS, but no information has become available as to her whereabouts.
A judge in Colorado also authorised American law enforcement to take custody of the children in April, citing a ‘credible risk that the children are in imminent danger’.
They added that Ms Samaratunga had ‘engaged in activities indicating a planned abduction’ and had ‘unilaterally prevented the children’s court-ordered return’.
Ms Samaratunga holding their son Blaine as a baby
This meant the children were ‘presently physically and emotionally endangered’.
Ms Samaratunga grew up in Colombo, Sri Lanka and studied law at University College London, before completing a master’s degree in management at Durham University.
During her teenage years she designed clothes under the fashion label ‘Nishi’.
She went on to build a career in recruitment advising private equity firms and global hedge funds on talent acquisition, before co-founding Baier Associates, a London-based global executive search and consulting firm, in 2020.
The company was acquired by executive search and recruitment firm Jensen Partners last October, with Ms Samaratunga listed as a managing director.
