This is the scenario:

Where an employee has been employed under a fixed term contract which runs:

from April 1st to October 31st

and the same contract for the same length of time is again awarded to the same employee the following year without the role being re-advertised or re-interviewed.

The role is guaranteed funding for a third term and the role was re-advertised and re-interviewed and awarded to another candidate. The employer claimed that the employee did not perform as well in the interview. (yet the same employee already won the original interview and has had 2 years to improve their examples for the interview, whilst the other candidate had no experience in the role or in that company)

The employee raised a completely valid complaint (verbally-a formal grievance was not raised in writing) about the conduct of another employee during the second term (relating to sexually discriminatory treatment), which may have been the actual reason for re-advertising the role. The employee had no issues with regard to either conduct or capability.

Since the contract is not renewed at the end of the second term, is that employee entitled to claim Unfair Dismissal, despite each contract only being under one year with several months between each contract? If so, what legislation can be used to back that claim?

There is another question to be answered:

Since the interview process took place more than 3 months after the expiry of the fixed term contract, how can the employee ensure the complaint is accepted by the Industrial Tribunal?

Many thanks for any help/advice you can provide.