Woman woke up to find shirtless man 'standing at end of bed' in Travelodge room

A woman has said she woke up to find a shirtless man “standing at the end of her bed” after he was mistakenly given a key card to their room in a Dundee Travelodge.

Kim Hutchison, 60, and her husband Harry Grieve, 57, were staying in room 313 of the Strathmore Avenue branch of the city when the incident happened at 2am on Saturday, July 11.

The 60-year-old, from Buckie, Moray, said she woke when she heard someone trying her door and opened her eyes to find a man standing at the foot of her bed with “only shorts on”.

The man claimed it was room 316, and it was “his room”.

‘He only had shorts on’

“The thought of someone trying the door must have woken me up”, Kim told STV News. “When I opened my eyes, the man was standing there.

“It was really scary. He was just there, he had only shorts on. I asked ‘What are you doing?’ and he said ‘This is my room, 316’ and I said that it was our room, 313.

“He continued to say ‘No, its 316’ and after arguing back and forth, I screamed at him and told him to get out.”

Police received reports of a man “causing a disturbance” and attended the incident. No arrests were made.

In December 2022, a woman was sexually assaulted by a man who gained access to her hotel room whilst she slept.

Kyran Smith falsely told staff at the Travelodge in Maidenhead that they were in a relationship and showed them his ID. He was given a key card, entered the woman’s room, and attacked her.

The reporting of the Maidenhead case led other people to come forward with security concerns at Travelodge hotels.

Travelodge said it was “very sorry” for what had happened to Mrs Hutchison and that staff had not correctly followed room access security policies.

A statement from them read: “Customer safety and security is – and remains – a priority for us. We are very sorry for Mr Grieve and Ms Hutchison’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.

“We investigated this incident when Mr Grieve and Ms Hutchison first reported it to us, which confirmed that 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.

An independent safety review remains under way to strengthen procedures and training, alongside an internal review of room‑access security to improve guest safety and confidence.

The hotel chain added: “As part of this, Travelodge has shared its updated internal security procedures with UK Hospitality and a number of industry peers, and we are committed to ensuring the relevant key insights from our independent review are also shared with this group.

“We want everyone to be safe, and feel safe, in our hotels.”