A woman who says she was attacked in her hotel room after Travelodge staff gave her attacker a key card has described it as one of the most 'traumatic nights' of her life.
Incident details
The domestic violence victim, who has not been named, booked a room at the hotel for a 'night away from the fear' after a period of abuse. But her attacker was reportedly given access by reception staff.
She told the BBC: 'He walked into the hotel and told the receptionist that his girlfriend was upstairs having a seizure. He asked what room I was in and what floor I was staying on.' The woman said she was staying at a Travelodge in London in October last year when she was attacked in her room.
Attack and aftermath
Staff handed the man a key and directed him to her room, she added. Once inside, he physically attacked her and tried to grab her phone, the woman said. She managed to convince him to leave, but he returned and became more aggressive.
She said: 'Not long afterwards, I heard him knocking at the door. He was banging, shouting. He was just getting more and more aggressive. I was terrified. I was hoping that he was going to stop, but instead, he kicked the hotel room door completely off the hinges.'
Related case
The woman revealed her trauma after learning of an unrelated case in which staff gave a key to a man who was able to attack a woman as she slept. Kyran Smith, 29, lied to reception, claiming he was the victim’s boyfriend and the hotel staff handed over the key card and her room number.
He then entered her room in the early hours and sexually assaulted her while she was asleep. When the victim, who is now in her 30s and cannot be named for legal reasons, reported the attack to the staff in the morning they offered her a £30 refund.
Smith, from Staines, was jailed for seven years and six months for trespass with intent to commit a relevant sexual offence and sexual assault on January 23.
Travelodge response
Responding to the reports made by the latest victim, a Travelodge spokesperson said: 'We are deeply sorry for the significant distress experienced by the customer and we apologise for the way the incident has been handled.'
'Customer safety and security is - and remains - a priority for us. Any case of an unauthorised person entering a guest's room is a significant cause for concern and we want to be clear that this should not have happened. Our room access security policies at the time were not correctly followed, which is not acceptable.'
'Earlier this year, we made changes to strengthen our room access security policy and incident escalation procedures, supported by training for all of our customer-facing colleagues.'
Political reaction
It is understood the individual provided the guest's full name and room number at reception. Travelodge chief executive Jo Boydell previously said immediate changes were made to its room access security policy after Smith was sentenced for the 2022 attack.
But Freddie van Mierlo, MP for Thame, Oxfordshire, where the chain's head office is based, said changes have not gone far enough and called on Ms Boydell to step down. He told BBC Breakfast that Travelodge cannot thrive if it cannot 'get to grips with the most basic of responsibilities', adding it needs to make 'wholesale deep changes' to how it operates.
Mr van Mierlo said: 'If a company is failing in its most basic duty to look after the safety of its guests, and we've heard the most horrific cases come forward, undermining the trust in the hotel industry, we've seen women, people feeling unable to stay in a hotel into the future, I think that does require accountability.'
He added: 'I don't think the changes that have taken place to date have been sufficient, that's evident, and that's why I think there needs to be a change at the top, because, ultimately, culture and safety needs to come from the very top of the company.'
In line with the changes, explicit permission is now required from guests before additional or replacement keys are issued for their room. It builds on Travelodge's existing policy to never confirm to a third party that a guest is staying at one of its hotels.
