In Bandit's defence it sounds as if his instructors don't have a grip on the legislation either otherwise they would have put him straight.
I think that a lot of the confusion lies in thinking of the IMCr and IR(R) as separate things, they are exactly the same but it's now called something else. It said IMC on my old JAR license, it says IR(R) on my EASA one, that's the only difference.