Mother screamed ‘Run! Go!’ at her girls as Dutchman began firing at them in French shooting

The mother of a young British girl shot dead in France yelled at her two daughters: ‘Run! To go!’ when a Dutch gunman opened fire on the family on Saturday, it came out.

Neighbor Dirk Raats, 71, has been formally charged with the murder of 11-year-old Solaine Thornton and the attempted murder of her parents Adrian and Rachael, when the family enjoyed a barbecue in Saint-Herbot near Quimper, Brittany, on Saturday.

Adrian and Rachael have both had surgery since the attack, with their family revealing today that the mother’s survival was “touch and go” after bullets were removed from her back and neck, narrowly missing an artery.

Marguerite Bleuzen – the mayor of Plonevez-du-Faou, the region that covers the hamlet – said yesterday that Rachael begged her two daughters, Solaine and her eight-year-old sister Celeste, to flee to safety. Celeste was able to escape to a local family friend’s house, but Solaine tragically died on the spot.

The new details of how the tragic events unfolded emerged when it was reported that just days ago the British couple had moved their children’s playground to ‘within meters’ of the suspect’s garden. Their own country borders his.

The Dutchman and the family had been in a long-standing dispute over their adjoining lots. Rachael told friends that several years ago, the neighbor threatened them with a gun after they cut down a hedge, claiming that it made his house visible to the public.

According to The Daily Telegraph, neighbors in the hamlet have said moving the children’s playground may have been the ‘provocation’ for the attack.

A neighbor, 65-year-old retired teacher Jean Larher, told the paper: “The noise was constant and, to be honest, sometimes hellish.”

According to neighbours, the British family was often engaged in clearing land, cutting wood and playing music. Their dogs would also bark, reports The Telegraph, with neighbors suggesting to the publication that this may have caused those nearby to become ‘distracted’.

Mr Larher said he did not understand why the family moved the children’s play area from one side of the garden to the other in the days before the attack.

“It used to be on the other side next to their house. On Saturday, the girls played by a tree just meters from where the neighbors were sitting,” he told the paper, adding that the father had recently trimmed the hedge so you could see through it.

‘It’s their country, but why did Adrian put his hand in the lion’s cage? In his position I would have left the playground on the other side of the yard,” he added.

It is clear that Rachael had told the Larhers that several years ago Raats had threatened them with a gun over a clearing in the garden, which was visible from the Dutchman’s property.

Marie-Celine Le Borgne, another neighbour, told The Times that Raats and his Belgian wife Marlene Van Hoof, 70, had threatened the Thorntons with guns and even “made the sign “couic”. [the slitting throat gesture]’.

Borgne claimed that Van Hoof had complained to her about privacy, saying: ‘We came to live in Saint-Herbot, it was to be quiet. And now, from the road, we can be seen. In the summer we can’t even eat in the garden.’

Mayor Bleuzen said: ‘The problem is that no one reported it, so no one intervened. If this report had been made, the gendarmes would have confiscated his weapon. And this tragedy would not have happened.’

Rachael’s mother, Christine Rhodes, told The Telegraph that her daughter has had “major surgery” since the shooting. “She had a bullet in her neck, which was next to an artery, and a bullet in her back near her lung.”

She said it was touch and go but she got through it. Her husband Adrian remains in critical condition and is in intensive care.

Raats is accused of being under the influence of drink and drugs when he fired a volley of shots at the family as they enjoyed an evening barbecue.

Solaine suffered a catastrophic gunshot wound to the heart while her father, now in a coma, was shot in the head and her mother in the back and neck.

Local residents are shocked by the horrific crime.

One of them told MailOnline: ‘I saw him, but never spoke to him. Nobody has. He spoke no French and rarely left his house.’

Van Hoof was arrested along with Raats following the shooting on Saturday evening after armed police surrounded their property.

She was accused of concealing Raats’ two weapons: a shotgun and a handgun. Raats had bought the weapons illegally and did not have a permit for them, it turned out. He barricaded himself in their house after the shooting.

Van Hoof was released last night and was back in her mansion today. She refused to speak when approached.

After the gunman opened fire, Celeste – who had been playing on a swing with Solaine – ran some 300 meters through her garden and up a village lane to Pierre Leroy’s house.

Celeste had dodged a bullet and ran for her life here saying, “They killed my sister and the man shot my dad.”

“We went straight there and the girl was dead and the mother was rocking her in her arms and screaming,” Thornton’s family friend told The Daily Telegraph.

Adrian also screamed, injured but conscious, but the mother, now stable but undergoing surgery, understood that it was too late for her daughter.

“There were no words, just screams,” said Mr. Leroy.

He told the newspaper that his wife accompanied the young girl to the hospital and stayed with her on Monday afternoon.

The family friend and another local, an 83-year-old retired soldier, told the publication they were both convinced the Dutchman wanted to kill the entire family.

But prosecutors suggested Monday that the little girl was “not the target” of the shooting.

At a press conference, District Attorney Camille Miansoni said, “It looks like he wasn’t aiming for the little girl.”