Adrian and Rachel Thornton, both from Oldham, came with their two daughters to live in the village of Saint Herbot in 2019. Theirs is the only English family in the area.
preliminarily, the Thorntons had lived in other corridor of France. Solaine was born in Brittany and Celeste in the Massif Central in central France.
The family home in Saint Herbot is a square, whitewashed, fairly ultramodern house with a large plot of land before and a workhouse which was formerly a sawmill.
While his woman worked in social services and his two children attended original seminaries, Adrian, a handyperson, spent a lot of time working on his plot of land.
According to Marguerite Bleuzen, mayor of the city of Plonevez- du- Faou, the land had been abandoned and was returning to the wild. Adrian set about the task of clearing the land, cutting down leafage and some trees.
This appears to have caused the disunion with his neighbours, whose large green- shuttered house looks down onto the Thorntons’ plot.
” I was called out there three times agone , when there were the first pressures,” said Mr Bleuzen.” We managed to settle effects down, but since also I had noway had to intermediate.”
But after Saturday’s firing, the mayor latterly heard from neighbours that there had been regular flare- ups.
The suspect held over the fatal firing of an 11- time-old British girl in France is under disquisition for murder, prosecutors say.
Solaine Thornton was shot dead while playing on a swing in her theater on Saturday evening.
Prosecutors said Dirk Raats, a 71- time-old neighbour, got to within 10m of the girl’s father before opening fire through a barricade.
He’d been in conflict with the family over structure work on their property.
Mr Raats also shut himself in his house in the vill of Saint- Herbot, north of Quimper in Brittany, following the incident but gave himself up to police an hour latterly.
His woman , who was also arrested, surrendered half an hour after he did, but she has ago been released.
Prosecutor Camille Miansoni said the couple had been in conflict for times with their British neighbours over workshop taking place on their property.
The suspect was” profoundly irritated” over the workshop, which he said affected his sequestration and caused disturbance to him and his woman .
Mr Miansoni said the suspect had gone into his home to cost one of the ordnance and returned to the theater before opening fire and shooting three or four times through a barricade. This suggested a position of premeditation, he said.
” It appears that he easily aimed at the father, that he aimed at his woman , but still he seems less clear as to a possible admission that he aimed at the girl,” Mr Miansoni said.
Solaine Thornton and her eight- time-old family Celeste had been playing on a swing as their parents tended the regale when the neighbour began firing.
The youngish girl ran to another neighbour’s house to raise the alarm and is now said to be in shock.
A original occupant told French media that the youngish child ran to neighbours crying” My family is dead, my family is dead”.
The victim’s parents Adrian and Rachel Thornton were also hurt and are in sanitarium.
A hunt of Mr Raats’ home uncovered two rifles, one of which hadn’t been preliminarily declared. The couple, both Dutch citizens, tested positive for alcohol and cannabis. They had no former persuasions, prosecutors said.
Mr Miansoni said the suspect had expressed remorse, and that a internal health assessment had set up nothing notable.” On one occasion, I was told that the Dutch man brought out a armament. I wish I or the police had been told, and this might have been avoided,” he said.
Locals say that the English family were well- liked. They advanced their plot of land for parking at the village’s periodic September jubilee which honours the saint after which it’s named. The 14th Century church lies 100m from the Thorntons’ house.
By discrepancy, no- bone seems to have had any contact with Mr Raats or his woman .
At around 2200 original time on Saturday night, he fired through his barricade into the plot of land where the Thorntons were having a regale.
The rough- and-ready children’s play area, with a swing and a small trampoline, is right next to the barricade which separates the two parcels. When the man fired, the girls were at virtually point-blank range.
According to Mayor Bleuzen, when police arrived, Rachel Thornton was holding her dead child in her arms.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office( FCDO) said it was furnishing backing to a British family.
