And it will be the CAA that is the judge and jury.
No, the UK Courts will be, and the past shows that the CAA is generally (not always, sadly) pretty smart in knowing what cases they can win.
I think
cessnarepairman has it exactly right.
If a part is on a, lets say, 1000 hour overhaul look back through the logbooks 1000 hours, no record of change, then change it. If its a 10 year life, no record, replace it
is how it must work, and that is how it works today (assuming the engineer is the least bit diligent).
As regards
TYPE -SPECIFIC maintenance schedules, I have come across this too. Socata planes have this in their maintenance manuals, apparently. The American ones don't but I don't know how one deals with that.