This section applies, in relation to an award of any payment by way of arrears of pay or damages in proceedings in Scotland on a complaint in respect of a woman’s service in any of the armed forces, for the purposes of determining the period mentioned in section 7A(9)(b) above.
Subject to subsection (3) below, that period is the period of five years which ends on the day on which the service complaint was made, except that the five years shall not be regarded as running during—
(a) any time when the woman was induced, by reason of fraud on the part of, or error induced by the words or conduct of, the employer or any person acting on his behalf, to refrain from instituting the proceedings (not being a time after she could with reasonable diligence have discovered the fraud or error), or
(b) any time when she was under a disability.
If, after regard is had to the exceptions in subsection (2) above, that period would include any time more than twenty years before the day mentioned in that subsection, that period is instead the period of twenty years which ends on that day.
Subsection (5) below applies in a case where, in accordance with regulations made under section 7A(6) above, proceedings are instituted without a service complaint having been made.
In that case, the reference in subsection (2) above to the making of the service complaint shall be read as a reference to the institution of proceedings.