Family's two-year fight to bring killer driver back from Latvia

Family's two-year fight to bring killer driver back from LatviaCaroline Gall - West Midlands;

Keaton Slater died when he was hit by Latvian Aleksanders Dolars' speeding BMW

Days after her 12-year-old son was killed by a BMW driver travelling at 70mph, Louise Slater sat outside the suspect's home, gathering the courage to plead with his family to hand him in.

She had been given the name and address of Aleksanders Dolars after her son Keaton was killed in a hit-and-run in Coventry.

Distraught, she was preparing to knock on the door when a neighbour approached and asked what she was doing.

When she explained, he told her the family, from Latvia, had packed up and left a day or two earlier.

Keaton's suspected killer had fled just hours after leaving him dying in the road.

What followed was a relentless two-year fight by his parents to track him down and bring him back to England to face justice.

He was finally jailed on Friday, for nine years and four months.

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Dolars' name had been already circulating locally before police identified him as their main suspect on 18 June 2024, four days after Keaton was killed.

A family waiting at nearby traffic lights said their seven-seater "shook violently" as a BMW driver sped past at what appeared to be far more than the 30mph limit. Moments later, they saw something fly into the air behind them.

The car did not stop.

As it disappeared from view, the family noticed a black rucksack and a single shoe lying in Radford Road and realised a child may have been hit.

Keaton's father Clint was taken to the scene where he watched as his 12-year-old son's body was covered.

He called his wife.

"We just stood there for ages, letting family know what had happened and the whole time I kept thinking, 'he's going to come running up to us in a minute'," she said.

"Then the police came over with a bag and asked, 'is this his'? It was demolished."

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In the days after Keaton's death, police reassured Louise airports had been alerted and the suspect would be stopped if he tried to leave the country.

She had been told the family lived on the same road as them and was given a house number.

Summoning the courage to go there, she hoped to appeal to his parents face to face.

"All I was going to say was, 'how can you live with yourselves'?," she said.

"I'd tell them to hold their hands up. Do the right thing. Tell him to face what he's done."

But when she arrived, the family had already gone.

Soon afterwards, people in Latvia contacted her to say Dolars was there. Police later confirmed he had travelled to the country in the weeks after Keaton's death, having tracked him through phone records.

The community quickly rallied around the family and, by August, a petition calling for his extradition had been started.

Yet bringing Dolars back to the UK would prove far from straightforward.

With no extradition treaty in place between the UK and the EU following Brexit, prosecutors and authorities faced a lengthy and complex legal battle requiring co-operation from both countries.

Louise and Clint Slater were determined to bring their son's killer before the UK courts

The family intensified their campaign, contacting the Latvian embassy and securing in April 2025 a meeting with Atis Lots, Latvia's ambassador to the UK.

They began by asking whether he was a father. When he said he was, they told him Keaton's story.

Afterwards, they came away convinced they had found an ally.

Bound by confidentiality over much of the discussion, Louise would not reveal details but said the ambassador left them feeling hopeful.

"They wouldn't even call him by his name," she said. "They called him the black sheep of Latvia.

"[They said] 'we don't want him here. We'll do anything we can to get him into your prisons'.

"To walk out of there hearing that, we thought, 'oh my God'."

Aleksanders Dolars was called the "black sheep of Latvia" by the country's ambassador to the UK

Taiwo Owatemi, MP for Coventry North West, was working behind the scenes to build political support.

Colleagues in Westminster had warned her that, without an extradition agreement between the UK and EU, securing Dolars' return would be extremely difficult.

However, she was encouraged by the Latvian ambassador telling her his country did not want a difficult relationship with the UK, given the proximity of the country to Ukraine and its continuing war with Russia.

She also learned from him that Latvians were angry at what had happened and that Dolars was bringing shame on their country.

"When you have Latvians in Latvia asking for justice, when you have Latvians in the UK asking for justice, that's his number one job as ambassador," Owatemi said.

Latvians were also proactive identifying where Dolars was in the country, she said.

Louise said she had received messages from families there via a Facebook page set up within the community after Keaton's death.

She said people were saying, "we don't want him here, he's scum".

They also sent a video of Dolars happily walking around and also with his car. She sent them to police.

"He was free. He thought he'd got away with it," she said.

In February 2026, there was a breakthrough.

The Latvian government considered legislation to allow citizens to be extradited to the UK for prosecution.

Campaigning by the family had helped bring about a new law where instances of extradition would now be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Louise said her son was very funny and "had a contagious laugh"

"I can't speak for the Latvian government, but for my part I am satisfied that had it not been for their campaigning, had it not been for them keeping Keaton at the forefront of everybody's mind, we wouldn't be where we are today," said Tamina Greaves, specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the West Midlands.

She said from the outset there "wasn't an appetite to change the legislation", but the family's "diligence and determination" to articulate the tragedy they were experiencing changed that.

Keaton's Corner was created by the community near to where he died

Greaves reviewed the case to decide whether or not there was sufficient evidence to charge Dolars and travelled to The Hague with colleagues to meet Latvian counterparts to try to get him brought back to the UK.

The case is the first time Latvia has extradited an individual since a nationality bar was imposed on the UK in 2021, as part of post-Brexit legislation changes.

Dolars was arrested and detained in Latvia in July this year and extradited a month later.

Det Ch Insp Sam Lewis, from West Midlands Police, said it had been an "indescribable day" for everyone involved in the investigation when he was handed over.

"When you sit down and you look his family in the face, I want to be able to say to them 'we've done everything we possibly can'," she said, adding there were times she could not reveal certain information.

Learning of his extradition through the CPS, Louise said she had burst out crying.

"I said... the first thing I'm going to do is come home and tell Keaton. I talk to Keaton every day," she said.

She said she was incredibly grateful for the help and support and wanted to thank Latvian authorities.

"We had so much love from this... because we weren't community people before this," she said.

"We would just go to work, the boys would go to school, we'd go round to the [social] club every now and then.. so it wasn't like you knew everyone in the street, but now we do.

"It's brought people together as well, not just us with them. It's amazing. What an amazing legacy for Keaton."

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