The wife was unable to sleep for the rest of the night after a stranger entered their room
A grieving couple was left shocked when an “intruder” entered their hotel room late at night. Gary and Alison Yates, both from North Yorkshire, travelled to Milton on Bank Holiday Monday (May 4), for Alison’s father’s funeral.
The couple got stuck in seven-hour traffic after a crash, meaning they missed the funeral. As the pair needed to clear out Alison’s father’s house in Milton, they stayed at a Travelodge in Orchard Park, Cambridge.
After a long and “emotional” day of cleaning out Alison’s father’s house on May 5, the pair “crashed out” in their hotel room, Gary said. While both were asleep in bed, the pair were woken up at 11.30pm.
“We were in a deep sleep and at 11.30pm, a man walked into our room,” said Gary. He added: “We sat up in bed and I shouted, as you would. The man said ‘I’m really sorry‘ and said ‘they’ve given me the wrong door key‘.”
Alison was unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Gary went down to reception the following morning and told a staff member. He said he was told that staff were “aware of the incident”, and the manager who was due to be in at 12pm would be in contact with him. The couple left on May 6 and made their way home. They did not hear from the hotel manager until May 8.
“The manager sent his apologies, but we feel like we’ve been fobbed off,“ Gary said. “I’m not expecting them to roll out the red carpet for us, but we just want some closure. Alison is still upset about what happened. She didn’t get to see her dad off, then there was clearing the house and with everything else that happened, this was the icing on the cake.”
A Travelodge spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for this customer’s experience. 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 policy was not correctly followed, which is not acceptable. We would like to apologise again to the customer for their experience with us.“
The Yates’ experience follows recent media reporting about a 2022 incident in Maidenhead which saw a man pretend to be a woman’s girlfriend to get a key card for her room. Kyran Smith, 29, raped the woman and was later sentenced to more than seven years in prison for the offence.
Travelodge says the company has commissioned an independent review to examine its policies and procedures led by Paul Greaney KC. A spokesperson said that Travelodge is also working on an internal review to ensure guests’ safety.
Gary believes security needs to be improved at the hotels. He added: “People need to be aware of what’s going on. What I don’t understand is they don’t have chains on the doors. The little lock [on the doors] is just a waste of time. I feel sorry for the poor bloke [who entered the room], he was an innocent party in this.”
The Travelodge spokesperson added that the hotel chain has made recent changes to strengthen room access security policies, including retraining customer-facing colleagues on upgraded policies. They said staff at the Cambridge Orchard Park hotel will receive additional training on room access security and check-in procedures.
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