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.
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