The prosecutors/authorities have won every time.
It is also the Captains position to stop a potential emergency situation arising.
The key here is to explain to ATC your predicament and your intentions.
To mislead ATC that you hold ratings that you dont or to say little when you have safer options available than taking an instrument approach will proabably result in a prosection.
But to have it recorded that you have entered adverse weather that you hold an IUK MCR rating and on the grounds of safety you would like vectors onto the XYZ ILS ???
The French who have no IMCR have a bad VFR fatality rate. Hence there is a move in France to push through an FAA style french PPL IR.
As EASA continue down their politically motivated regulation path and fail to follow their SAFETY mandate I can see more successful challenges in the courts based on safety against EASA.
I maybe wrong but regarding FAA IR v JAA IR I do not think there has been a prosecution against an FAA IR flying a JAA aircraft IFR?
Pace