I found that the remoting source being used is 2.2.2-SP8
The problem was being cause by the name of the server redditch_efin_app01. Once the URI hasd been parsed the call to uri.getHost was returning null. I added an entry to the host file for redefinapp01 and restarted the appserver. The new URI was parsed correctly and the call to uri.getHost returned the correct value.
Whilst trying to get to the bottom of this I found that the remoting code does not seem to use the default setting for remoting.bind_by_host
String bindByHost = System.getProperty(BIND_BY_HOST, "True");
byHost = Boolean.getBoolean(bindByHost); //this was false even thought the above string was 'True'
I managed to fix this with a change of config but I did not seem to ba able to force a legacy parse or to bind by host.