A judge's failure to give adequate directions to the jury has led to the Court of Appeal ordering a new trial for Police Constable Glenroy McDermott, who was convicted in 2006 of the murder of a wanted man.

The Court of Appeal upheld legal arguments from defence lawyer Valerie Neita-Robertson that the judge failed to point out, to the jury, the defence established by the Constitution that McDermott, a police officer acting pursuant to his duty to apprehend a fleeing felon, used force resulting in death.

She submitted that McDermott, who was a policeman, was entitled to use force against the man who was in possession of an illegal firearm and had fired at the police at the time of the incident.

The defence did not raise the issue at the trial, in the Home Circuit Court, that the killing had occurred while McDermott was in the process of apprehending a fleeing felon.

It was the court's ruling that, in the interest of justice, McDermott is to face a new trial for the murder of Michael Dorsett, otherwise called 'Buba' of Bull Bay, St Thomas, who was fatally shot in Taylor Land, near Bull Bay on November 9, 2000.