Travelodge review 'emotional read' for security victim

A woman who experienced a naked man performing sex acts outside her Travelodge hotel room says a review into the chain's security was an "emotional read".

Wendy Griffith was one of dozens of people who shared their stories after the BBC revealed how a woman woke up to a man sexually assaulting her in her bed at the chain's Maidenhead branch in December 2022 after staff gave him a key card and her room number.

Griffith said she felt "sadness and frustration that women had to go through these experiences" for the review to happen and she wants lessons to be learnt across the industry.

Travelodge said it welcomes the recommendations from the report and changes have been under way since March.

Marketing consultant Griffith, from Norfolk, was staying at Travelodge London Stratford in July 2025 when she said a man started banging on her door.

She then witnessed him through the door's peephole performing sex acts.

She recalled "rising panic" over the hour as she was "essentially trapped" in the middle of the night, trying and failing "multiple times" to contact hotel staff.

With no room phone and no emergency contact number in her room, she used her mobile to try to call the Travelodge website number.

She said she was "incredibly traumatised and not able to summon help", then dialled 999 in desperation.

The man, Trevor Reece, 40, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency in September 2025.

He was sentenced by magistrates to four months of alcohol dependency treatment and ordered to pay £185 court costs and £50 compensation to his victim, which Griffith says has yet to be paid.

She subsequently discovered that during a lull in the hour she was targeted, her tormentor - who was also a hotel guest - had gone to reception and asked for a replacement room key. He was given her room number instead of his own.

A review carried out by barrister Paul Greaney KC found room intrusions were reported at nearly one in 10 Travelodge hotels this summer and no policy was in place on violence against women and girls.

Travelodge interim chief executive Ray Reidy told the BBC the company was working with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust - a personal safety charity - to develop one.

Griffith said she had found the review "quite emotional to read" and described it as "galling".

"I mean, there's validation in it, but there's also real sadness and frustration that women had to go through these experiences before the issues were taken this seriously," she said.

"It's terrible to think that it's just taken years and years for this to come to life and such serious incidences for people to realise what's been going on and how companies like Travelodge have been behaving."

The company, which is based in Thame, Oxfordshire, said in its response to the review: "Travelodge would like to unreservedly apologise again to the woman assaulted and to all guests where Travelodge has fallen short due to failures in its policies and procedures for room access security and in its response to complaints."

Griffith said prior to her ordeal, she would "regularly travel on my own".

"I treat travel now and security in particular in hotel rooms so differently," she added.

Carolyn Pearson, CEO of travel security company Maiden Voyage, said handing a room key to someone claiming to be a guest's boyfriend is an "incredibly basic" failure, but one that is "unfortunately very common across the industry".

"This is not just a Travelodge issue," she added.

Pearson said hotels "should never ever confirm whether or not a guest is staying at the hotel or not".

Dawn Brennan, CEO of women's safety charity Wise Women, said: "We would say that no one should be getting access to any rooms unless they're registered and also provide an ID.

"But even further than that considering women's safety, the hotel should have policies in place where they double check as well if it's a partner that's coming to the reception and they don't have the key."

Griffith said she believed security and safety at hotels was an "industry-wide problem" and has set up a petition calling on the government to implement minimum safety and guest security standards across all hotels in the UK.

As the law stands at present, primarily, the hotel and its management are responsible for the safety of guests.

Each hotel, or chain, will have its own security policy which staff should abide by.

Griffith said: "What has kept me speaking up about this is the fact that so many people have been affected, in particular women, and something positive has to come from these incidences.

"Change has to happen and I've said throughout a locked hotel room should mean exactly that. Locked, safe, yours.

"What I want now is for the lessons from this review to go beyond Travelodge and help create clear national standards across the hotel industry."