Hit-and-run killer jailed 9 years after two-year fight to extradite him from Latvia
Aleksanders Dolars fled to Latvia hours after killing 12-year-old Keaton Slater in Coventry. His parents spent two years campaigning for his return before he was jailed for over nine years.
Parents' two-year campaign brings Coventry hit-and-run killer to justice
Aleksanders Dolars was jailed for nine years and four months on Friday for killing 12-year-old Keaton Slater in a hit-and-run in Coventry — the culmination of a two-year fight by Keaton's parents to bring him back from Latvia to face trial, BBC News reports.
Dolars, a Latvian national, fled the country within hours of striking Keaton with his speeding BMW on Radford Road and leaving him to die. Police confirmed he had travelled to Latvia in the weeks following the collision, having traced his movements through phone records.
Keaton was hit on 14 June 2024, when a witness family waiting at nearby traffic lights said their seven-seater vehicle "shook violently" as a BMW passed at what appeared to be well above the 30mph limit. Moments later they saw something fly into the air. Pulling over, they found a black rucksack and a single shoe in the road and realised a child had been struck.
Keaton's father Clint was brought to the scene and watched as his son's body was covered. His mother Louise described standing there in disbelief, telling herself her son was about to come running up. When officers brought over a bag and asked her to identify it, she said it had been "demolished".
Police identified Dolars as their main suspect four days later, on 18 June 2024. By then, Louise had already been given his name and address by people in the local community.
Summoning the courage to go to his door, she intended to plead with his family directly. "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."
She arrived to find the house empty. A neighbour told her the family had packed up and left a day or two earlier — just hours after Keaton was killed.
No extradition treaty, no easy route back
Soon afterwards, contacts in Latvia told Louise that Dolars was in the country. The community around the family mobilised quickly: by August 2024, a petition demanding his extradition had been launched.
Bringing him back, however, was far from straightforward. Following Brexit, no extradition treaty exists between the UK and the EU, leaving prosecutors and authorities facing a lengthy legal process that required active co-operation from both sides.
The family escalated their campaign, contacting the Latvian embassy and securing a meeting in April 2025 with Atis Lots, Latvia's ambassador to the UK. They opened by asking whether he was a father. When he confirmed he was, they told him Keaton's story.
Louise said the ambassador referred to Dolars as "the black sheep of Latvia" and told them his country did not want him. "We don't want him here. We'll do anything we can to get him into your prisons," she recalled being told. The family left the meeting feeling, in her words, that they had found an ally.
Taiwo Owatemi, MP for Coventry North West, was simultaneously working to build political support in Westminster. Colleagues had warned her that without an extradition agreement, securing Dolars' return would be extremely difficult. She was encouraged, however, when the Latvian ambassador indicated that his country did not want a strained relationship with the UK, particularly given Latvia's proximity to Ukraine and Russia's ongoing war there.
Owatemi said she had also learned that Latvians themselves were angry at what Dolars had done and that he was considered a source of national embarrassment. "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," she said.
Members of the Latvian public sent Louise messages through a Facebook page set up after Keaton's death. Some sent a video showing Dolars walking freely and with his car. She passed the footage to police. "He was free. He thought he'd got away with it," she said.
New Latvian law paves the way for return
In February 2026, a breakthrough came. The Latvian government moved to introduce legislation allowing its citizens to be extradited to the UK for prosecution, with cases to be considered on an individual basis. The family's campaigning was credited as a driving force behind the change in law.
Owatemi said she was "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."
Keaton was described in court as "funny, caring, loving and full of life" — a boy who loved football and, in his mother's words, had "a contagious laugh". He was 12 years old at the time of his death.
Dolars was convicted and sentenced on Friday. He will serve his term in a UK prison.
Source: BBC News