Court told Strabane man Andrew Burns died from fatal gunshot wound to back

A Strabane man died from a gunshot wound to his back which caused massive loss of blood, the Special Criminal Court has heard today.
27-year-old Andrew Burns was murdered in a church car-park in Donnyloop in February 2008.
36-year-old Martin Kelly, a bus-driver, also from Strabane,  is on trial for the murder of Mr Burns whose body was found by a group of teenagers in the car park.
State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy told the court today that she carried out a post mortem on Mr Burns’s body on February 13. She found four gunshot wounds, two entry wounds and two exit wounds, showing that two shots had hit him.
She said that no bullets were recovered. One gunshot wound was a flesh wound to the left shoulder. The other gunshot had entered the right side of the back and had caused injuries to the aorta and bowel.
The Court was also told that the gunshot wound to the back had penetrated the abdominal cavity and Mr Burns had lost “a substantial quantity of blood which caused his collapse and death”.
Dr Cassidy said that the fatal wound went diagonally upwards through the body and this suggested that Mr Burns was possibly moving away from his assailant when he was shot.
The trial is continuing.