JdbcDate.compose is not null safe

I am using the cassandra-jdbc for CQL. I have a table with timestamp column. When timestamp column is null it throws, IndexOutOfBoundsException exception since JdbcDate.compose calls the new Date(ByteBufferUtil.toLong(value)). The ByteBufferUtil.toLong(bytes) throws exception the exception since position and limit pointers are same (similar to null). This has to be handled gracefully in the JdbcDate.compose method instead of throwing exception. I would like to see implementation something like,

public Date compose(ByteBuffer bytes)
{
if(bytes.limit() - bytes.position() > 0)

{ return new Date(ByteBufferUtil.toLong(bytes)); }

return null;
}

BTW, this matches exactly reverse with decompose method. Logically it supposed to be implemented in the first place