"He had a Second Class medical with the only restriction being 'Must have available glasses for near vision.'
and he had a U.K. licence Class 2 medical with a restriction on specifically preventing flight at night"
I find this strange. His current medical was an EASA Class 2. The restrictions on it were what matter. It is surprising that colour blindness restrictions were lifted, but apparently they were. The UK licence medical would have been in the past, and replaced by the EASA one when it expired.
(I have flown on a PPL since 1987. I got a JAR number in 2006. I got both an EASA and a UK National PPL in 2018. I have always had a standard PPL medical - was it called Class 2 in 1987? My original FAA 61.75 had a night restriction, although I had a Night Rating, but that restriction was removed later.)