Woman’s Travelodge horror as man ‘kicks room door off hinges after workers give him key’
A woman has spoken out after she was attacked in her Travelodge hotel room after reception staff handed her abuser a key. She called it one of the most ‘traumatic nights’ of her life
The woman says she was staying in a London Travelodge when the attack happened(Image: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)
A woman who claims she was assaulted in her Travelodge hotel room after reception staff gave her attacker a key has branded it one of the most “traumatic nights” of her life.
The domestic violence survivor, who cannot be identified, revealed to the BBC she was staying at a London Travelodge in October last year when she was set upon in her room.
She approached the broadcaster after learning about the sentencing of a man who assaulted a woman at a Travelodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in December 2022 following being handed a key to her room. Kyran Smith was caged for seven-and-a-half years in February.
The woman claims the man was handed a key to her room(Image: PA)
The domestic violence survivor revealed to the BBC she had reserved a room at the hotel for a “night away from the fear” following a spell of abuse. However, her attacker was allegedly granted access by reception staff.
The woman said of her abuser: “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.”
Staff gave him a key and showed him to her room, she added. Once inside, he physically assaulted her and attempted to snatch her phone, the woman said.
She managed to persuade him to leave, but he came back and became more violent.
“Not long afterwards, I heard him knocking at the door. He was banging, shouting. He was just getting more and more aggressive,” she said. “I was terrified. I was hoping that he was going to stop, but instead, he kicked the hotel room door completely off the hinges.”
The woman said she went downstairs “shaking” and “begging for help”. She added: “I think the receptionist just panicked. She didn’t call the police. She didn’t check if I needed any medical attention.
“She didn’t ask if there were any family members I could call, anyone that I needed. She just she just offered me a room, another room in the hotel.”
In response to the woman’s account, a Travelodge spokesperson stated: “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.”
Travelodge chief executive Jo Boydell previously stated immediate changes were made to its room access security policy after Smith was sentenced for the 2022 attack.
In accordance with the changes, explicit permission is now needed from guests before additional or replacement keys are issued for their room.
This enhances Travelodge’s current policy to never confirm to a third party that a guest is staying at one of its hotels.
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