Mother yelled ‘Run! Go!’ to her daughters when the Dutchman started shooting at them in a French shootout

The mother of a young British woman shot dead in France yelled at her two daughters: “Run!” Go!’ when a Dutch gunman opened fire on the family on Saturday, it has surfaced.

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

Adrian and Rachael have undergone surgery since the attack, and their family revealed today that the mother survived after bullets were removed from her back and neck, with one of them narrowly missing an artery.

Marguerite Bleuzen, the mayor of Plonevez-du-Faou, the region the village covers, said yesterday that Rachael pleaded with her two daughters, Solaine and her eight-year-old sister Celeste, to flee to safety. Celeste was able to escape to the home of a local family friend, but Solaine tragically died at the scene.

New details of how the tragic events unfolded emerged when it was reported that the British couple had just days ago moved their children’s play area to “patios” in the suspect’s garden. His own land rests on hers.

the dutch national and the family had been in a long dispute over their adjoining plots. Rachael told his friends that the neighbor had threatened them with a gun several years ago after they cut down a hedge, claiming he was exposing his house to public view.

According to The Daily Telegraph, residents of the village have said that the family who moved the children’s play area may have been the ‘provocation’ of the attack.

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

The British family often cleared the land, cut wood and played music, neighbors said. Their dogs were also barking, The Telegraph reports, with neighbors suggesting to the publication that this could have led those nearby to become “distracted”.

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

‘Before, it was the other side next to his house. On Saturday the girls were playing in a tree a few meters from where the neighbors were sitting,” he told the newspaper, adding that the father had recently cut down the hedge so you could see through it.

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

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

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

Borgne claimed that van Hoof had complained about privacy to her, telling her: “We came to live in Saint-Herbot, it was to be quiet.” And now, from the road, you can see us. We can’t even eat in the garden in summer.

Mayor Bleuzen said: ‘The problem is that nobody reported it, so nobody intervened. Had this report existed, the gendarmes would have confiscated the weapon. And this tragedy would not have happened.

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

She said it was ‘touch and go’ but she has recovered. Her husband Adrián remains in critical condition and in intensive care.

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

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

Neighbors have spoken of their shock at the horrible crime.

One told MailOnline: ‘I’ve seen him but never talked to him. Nobody has. He didn’t speak French and rarely left his house.

Van Hoof was arrested with Raats following the shooting Saturday night after armed police surrounded his property.

She was charged with concealing Raats’ two weapons: a hunting rifle and a pistol. Raats had bought the weapons illegally and did not have a license for either, she has reported. She barricaded herself in her house after the shooting.

Van Hoof was released last night and returned to her country home today. She refused to speak when she approached him.

After the gunman opened fire, Celeste, who had been playing on a swing with Solaine, ran about 1,000 feet through her garden and up a path in the village to Pierre Leroy’s house.

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

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

Adrian was also screaming, hurt but conscious, but the mother, who is now stable but undergoing surgery, understood that it was too late for her daughter.

“There were no words, just screaming,” Leroy said.

He told the newspaper that his wife accompanied the young woman 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 that they were both convinced the Dutchman wanted to kill the entire family.

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

Speaking at a press conference, prosecutor Camille Miansoni said: “It appears that he was not aiming at the girl.”