A couple staying at a Travelodge in Dundee woke to find a shirtless stranger standing in their room after he was mistakenly handed a key card to their accommodation. Kim Hutchison, 60, and Harry Grieve, 57, from Buckie in Moray, were at the Dundee Strathmore Avenue Travelodge when the man entered their room shortly after 2am last month.
Intruder entered room after key card mix-up
Ms Hutchison said she was left "absolutely petrified" after waking to see the man, who was wearing only shorts, standing at the foot of their bed. He left following a brief argument over which room he had been assigned, reported the BBC. Travelodge apologised and admitted its room access security procedures had not been properly followed.
The incident is the second involving strangers gaining access to Travelodge rooms to hit the headlines in recent months. Earlier this year, a man was jailed for sexually assaulting a woman after staff at a Travelodge in Maidenhead gave him both her room number and a key card after he falsely claimed to be her boyfriend.
Couple's ordeal and aftermath
Kyran Smith, 29, from Staines, Surrey, had attended a party with the victim before they and others stayed overnight at the hotel in December 2022. After obtaining access to her room by deception, he sexually assaulted the woman as she slept before leaving when she woke and ordered him to get out. Smith was later convicted of trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence and sexual assault, and sentenced to seven years and six months in prison.
Ms Hutchison and Mr Grieve decided to speak out after reading about that case. The couple had been visiting relatives in Dundee and had gone to bed before being startled awake when they heard their room door open.
Ms Hutchison said: "I just woke up, I had heard the door click, and sat up in bed. Here was a guy at the bottom of the bed, just standing with shorts on. He had something in his hand which I took to be the key card for the room." She said the man repeatedly insisted he had been allocated room 316, while she told him they were in room 313.
"He was adamant it was his room. After a few polite words - I think I swore actually - he eventually went. He must have been in the room for maybe just under a minute. It was scary, him being there."
Travelodge response and apology
Mr Grieve said he immediately went to reception to find out how the mistake had happened, but found nobody at the desk. Police later attended the hotel following reports of a separate disturbance at around the same time. No arrests were made.
The shaken couple wedged a chair against their room door before trying to get back to sleep, but decided to abandon the rest of their weekend break and return home the following morning. Mr Grieve said it took around two weeks before Travelodge responded following several emails and telephone calls.
The hotel chain refunded the cost of their stay and offered them a £100 voucher, although he said he doubted they would use it. He said: "It could have been so much worse, the potential for what could have happened is huge. It could have been anybody accessing the room, it could have been a female in the room on her own."
Travelodge said it was "very sorry" for what had happened and stressed customer safety remained its priority. A spokesman added: "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 updated room access security policies were not correctly followed in this instance, which is not acceptable. We have retrained the team at our Dundee Strathmore Avenue hotel on our updated room security and check-in procedures, and would like to apologise again to Mr Grieve and Ms Hutchison for their experience with us."
