Thanks BEagle, that ties-up with my understanding (I omitted the word "total" when mentioning JAR FI hours). I advised him to speak directly to licensing because of his unusual situation but he hasn't yet done so.
Because of his range of experience (5-10 thousand hours as a QSP on a range of types including Hastings, Anson, Varsity, Valetta, Meteor, DC3, etc, etc.) and recently demonstrated skill I'm hoping that they will allow him to complete sufficient of the MEP course to "reach standard" and then to take the test; this will probably take his total hours with a JAR FI to around 10 - insisting on more in the interests of bureaucracy would be an expensive nonsense in this case. Hopefully our Gatwickian colleagues will see sense.
HFD