The Shirley Valentine who fell for Sri Lankan ‘conman’
She sent cash for dog shelter
WHEN holidaymaker Jennifer Bain fell for a Sri Lankan tour guide, she believed it was a meeting of minds.
Animal lover Miss Bain, 52, was impressed by his manners and moved by his concern for starving dogs in his country.
Within days of meeting Nissanka Premadasa, 43, she decided to realise her dream of opening a Sri Lankan dog sanctuary. On returning home to Cambridge, the guesthouse owner set about remortgaging her semi for £90,000 to buy the land and begin building.
But last night Miss Bain, who had already handed over an initial £3,500 in fees, claimed she had been the victim of a scam. She said she has discovered the land she hoped to buy does not exist and has found out that Mr Premadasa is happily married with two children.
He denies any wrongdoing, but Miss Bain said: ‘Finding out Nissanka is happily married was bad enough but finding out my dream of owning a dog sanctuary in Sri Lanka won’t happen is heartbreaking.’
Miss Bain flew to Colombo in Sri Lanka for a touring holiday in December 2014. Taxi driver Mr Premadasa drove her from hotel to hotel. ‘The sense of attraction was so strong that within days we’d begun a romantic relationship,’ she said.
‘At first he told me he was single. But in a hotel one day I answered the phone to a woman who said she was his wife. He then told me they were separated.’ The pair quickly discovered a shared passion for dogs. Miss Bain, who has never married, said: ‘When he suggested I might invest in a hotel in Sri Lanka, I thought it would be wonderful to open a dog sanctuary on the land.’
She went home to Cambridge before returning to Sri Lanka last December. She said: ‘Nissanka said he’d found a hotel with some land close to Sigiriya. It seemed perfect.’ But her world began to unravel when she fell ill and went to recover at Mr Premadasa’s home. ‘By then
‘It seemed perfect’
he’d told me although he was separated, he still lived with his wife. But I thought it odd they were sleeping in the same bed,’ she recalled. However, she put her worries aside.
She said: ‘I gave a lawyer friend of Nissanka £2,500 in upfront legal fees. I also put down a £1,000 reservation fee on a hotel with land with a friend of his.’ After returning to the UK she was about to wire over more money when a solicitor friend noticed some details in the property deeds she’d been sent were wrong.
She said she rang Mr Premadasa but he put the phone down. She has now employed a solicitor to try to get the money back.
Mr Premadasa said: ‘She (Jennifer) wanted land and gave the money to a lawyer and a hotel owner, not me. There was no affair. We were just friends and she always knew I had a wife and two children.’