If I'm understanding it correctly...I think you just need to add the keyword
DISTINCT
to your count function. So it would be:
SELECT r.REF FROM R as r JOIN P as p ON p.ID=r.ID group by r.REF HAVING count(distinct p.TYPE) > 1
See
google[
^] for more info.
------------ Update ------------
For performance issues, perhaps using temporary tables would help? Since R is the table with the most records, perhaps first pulling it with distinct values and using THAT table to join to P would be better? Something like this:
SELECT r.Ref FROM (SELECT DISTINCT ID, REF FROM R as r) INNER JOIN P as p ON p.ID=r.ID GROUP BY r.Ref HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT p.Type) > 1
Hope this helps.