Two-year fight by parents of Keaton Slater, 12, brings hit-and-run driver back from Latvia to face justice

Days after her 12-year-old son Keaton was killed in Coventry, Louise Slater sat outside a house on her own road, trying to find the nerve to knock. Police had given her a name, Aleksanders Dolars, and a house number. She meant to ask his family to make him hand himself in. Before she could, a neighbour came over and asked what she was doing. When she explained, he told her the family, who were from Latvia, had packed up and left a day or two earlier.

The man suspected of killing Keaton had fled within hours of leaving the boy dying in Radford Road. The collision happened on 14 June 2024. A family waiting at nearby traffic lights said their seven-seater shook violently as a BMW sped past, at what looked like far more than the 30mph limit. The driver was later said to have been travelling at 70mph. Moments afterwards they saw something fly into the air behind them. The car did not stop. As it vanished, they spotted a black rucksack and a single shoe in the road and realised a child might have been hit.

Keaton's father, Clint, was taken to the scene and watched as his son's body was covered. He called Louise. She recalled standing there for ages, telling relatives what had happened while she kept thinking Keaton would come running up in a minute. Then police came over with a bag and asked if it was his. It was, she said, demolished.

Police named Dolars as their main suspect on 18 June, four days after the crash, though his name was already circulating locally. Officers had told Louise that airports were alerted and he would be stopped if he tried to leave. Soon, people in Latvia contacted her to say he was there. Police later confirmed, having traced him through phone records, that he had travelled to Latvia in the weeks after Keaton's death.

Bringing him back was far from simple. With no extradition treaty between the UK and the EU since Brexit, prosecutors faced a lengthy, complex process needing co-operation from both countries. The community rallied, and by August 2024 a petition demanding his extradition had begun. The family contacted the Latvian embassy and in April 2025 met the ambassador to the UK, Atis Lots. They opened by asking if he was a father; when he said yes, they told him Keaton's story. Bound by confidentiality over much of the meeting, Louise would not give details, but said they left feeling hopeful. She said the Latvians would not even use Dolars's name, calling him the black sheep of Latvia, and said they would do anything to get him into British prisons.

Taiwo Owatemi, MP for Coventry North West, worked behind the scenes to build political support. Colleagues at Westminster had warned her that without a UK-EU extradition agreement, his return would be extremely difficult. But the ambassador told her Latvia did not want a difficult relationship with the UK, given its proximity to Ukraine and the continuing war with Russia, and that Latvians were angry and felt Dolars was shaming their country. Latvians also helped locate him. Through a Facebook page set up in the community after Keaton's death, families sent Louise messages and video of Dolars walking around happily and with his car. She passed them to police. He was free, she said, and thought he had got away with it.

The breakthrough came in February 2026, when the Latvian government considered legislation allowing its citizens to be extradited to the UK for prosecution. The resulting law means extradition is now considered case by case. Tamina Greaves, a specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands, said there was initially no appetite to change the law, and that the family's diligence and determination changed that. She reviewed the evidence, then travelled to The Hague with colleagues to meet Latvian counterparts. The case is the first time Latvia has extradited anyone since a nationality bar was imposed on the UK in 2021.

Dolars was arrested and detained in Latvia in July this year and extradited a month later. Det Ch Insp Sam Lewis of West Midlands Police called the handover an indescribable day. On Friday he was jailed for nine years and four months. Louise, who learned of the extradition through the CPS, said she cried and that her first thought was to go home and tell Keaton, whom she talks to every day. She thanked the Latvian authorities, and said the campaign had brought her neighbours closer, calling it an amazing legacy for Keaton.