Woman assaulted after Travelodge staff gave room key to her abuser

Travelodge staff gave a room key to the domestic abuser of a woman, who then physically attacked her.The woman, who is remaining anonymous, told the BBC she was staying in a branch of the hotel in London to escape the man, but he followed her and was given a key by the reception staff.They pointed him to her room, where she says he kicked in the door, assaulted her and tried to grab her phone. Travelodge has said such instances are “very rare” and customer safety is a priority.The hotel chain has come under fire for giving men the keys to women’s rooms without asking the woman first.The domestic abuse victim told the BBC that she was staying at the hotel in London in October 2025 for “a night away from the fear” following a period of abuse that had left her “frightened and exhausted”.She said: “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.”He was then handed a key by reception staff and shown the way to her room. She said: “I couldn’t believe it. The one place I thought he could never get to, he had somehow reached. I felt sick with panic. My safe place disappeared in an instant.”She said she ran “shaking, crying and begging for help”, adding: “I thought someone would protect me,” but was then offered another room in the hotel.MPs have previously written to Travelodge to ask it to review its policies around women’s safety.A man was sentenced in February to more than seven years in jail after lying to hotel staff in Maidenhead in 2022 that he was the boyfriend of a woman staying there, and being given a key card to her room. Staff did not check with the woman before giving him the card, and he then sexually assaulted her in her hotel bed. The victim was later offered what she described as an “insulting” £30 refund after the incident.A Travelodge spokesperson said: “Customer safety and security is – and remains – a priority for us. Earlier this year, we commissioned an independent review led by Paul Greaney KC, a leading barrister specialising in public inquiries concerning security, serious violent crime, and health and safety, to examine our room access security policies and escalation procedures.“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.”