A shocking independent review has found that Travelodge staff allowed strangers access to guests’ rooms on 60 occasions—four years after a man sexually assaulted a woman in bed after being handed a key to her room.
In December 2022, Kyran Smith, 29, obtained a key to a colleague’s room at a Travelodge in Maidenhead by falsely telling a receptionist that he was her boyfriend. He later sexually assaulted the woman and was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison this February.
At the time, staff took no action beyond providing relevant CCTV footage to police. The matter only came to the attention of Travelodge’s then-chief executive, Jo Boydell, after the scandal was reported by the national media on March 6, 2026.
An independent review by Paul Greaney KC has now revealed that strangers were still gaining access to guests’ rooms this summer—months after Smith’s conviction and during a period when Travelodge was supposedly strengthening its security training.
Mr Greaney described the findings as “disturbing” and warned that the serious shortcomings in customer safety could reflect a wider problem across the hotel industry.
Commissioned earlier this year following Smith’s conviction, the review included a mystery shopper operation. Undercover investigators tested security procedures at five Travelodge hotels in different parts of the country.
At every hotel, the investigators were able to enter a room that did not belong to them with the help of a housekeeper. They were not asked to prove they had permission to enter and were not directed back to reception.
At two of the hotels, reception staff announced a guest’s room number aloud during check-in, potentially allowing anyone nearby to hear it. In addition, receptionists failed to ask for a second guest’s name to be added to the booking in 80 per cent of the tests.
Travelodge’s former chief executive, Jo Boydell, stepped down this year after the scandal revealed that she was not informed of a serious sexual assault and security breach until four years after it occurred
Wendy Griffith told the Mail that she discovered a man performing a sex act outside her door at 1am while staying at a Travelodge in London last year
The results of the mystery shopper exercise, conducted in April, were so serious that Mr Greaney issued Travelodge with an urgent warning. The company was instructed to provide all staff with further guidance on following its revised policies. However, additional breaches were reported afterwards.
Wendy Griffith, a 44-year-old marketing consultant, told the Mail that she woke to find a man performing sex acts outside her room at a Travelodge in east London in August last year.
She called reception but received no answer. Ms Griffith eventually had to dial 999 and wait for police to arrive and arrest the man, 40-year-old Trevor Reece.
It later emerged that reception staff had disclosed her room number after Reece claimed he had lost his key card.
While the new measures were being introduced, genuine guests reported room intrusions at almost one in 10 Travelodge hotels—around 60 incidents in total.
A separate focus group held by Mr Greaney at the Maidenhead hotel where Smith carried out his attack on December 16, 2022, found that no supervisor had checked whether employees understood their key security training.
The review also observed a staff member incorrectly checking in a couple without following the required procedure. Junior female employees expressed concerns about their personal safety while working at the hotel.
In his 70-page review, published on September 21, Mr Greaney concluded: “To say the least, all of the above reflects extremely poorly on Travelodge as a business.
“I consider that Lily* was fundamentally failed by Travelodge as an organisation at every stage. So too was the general public, because what Lily’s case reveals about the inadequacy of the room security processes created a risk for all guests, as subsequent reports to the media and to me confirm.
“As I go on to explain, I received evidence that the problem with room security exposed by Lily’s case is not one restricted to Travelodge, but instead exists across the hotel sector. Change needed to occur, and still needs to occur, across the sector, not just within Travelodge.”
The budget-friendly chain accommodation, which has 600 hotels, 13,000 staff and annually welcomes over 22million guests, said in response to the findings today: ‘Travelodge is committed to addressing the issues raised by this report in a thorough and accountable way and will undertake independent progress assessments after 6 and 12 months.
Travelodge’s hotel staff were found to have let strangers into guest’s rooms sixty times, a damning new report has found
‘When this assault came to the attention of the Travelodge Board in March this year, it instigated a large-scale programme of change to drive improvements across both hotel operations and customer services.’
The review also revealed Travelodge’s egregious failures in handling Lily’s* sexual assault in December 2022.
It detailed how, when Lily reported that a man had entered her room while she was asleep in bed that night to staff, their response was to offer ‘no support or assistance of any meaningful nature’.
Mr Greaney wrote: ‘Their conduct was lacking in any understanding of their safeguarding responsibilities and was not remotely trauma informed.
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‘As I have ultimately found, this was principally the result of a lack of adequate training of them in the topic of Violence against Women and Girls (‘VAWG’) and the existence of an unacceptable culture within Travelodge in which room intrusions were tolerated.’
Indeed, despite Lily and her manager informing staff again what happened the next day, no internal investigation to find out what happened was triggered.
Two days after the incident, when police arrived at the Maidenhead Travelodge on December 18, all staff did was hand over the appropriate CCTV.
Lily made a formal complaint early in the New Year in 2023 addressed to, among others, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jo Boydell, detailing her ordeal and stating ‘I want to ensure this is dealt with appropriately and does not happen to someone else’.
The independent review revealed that ‘room intrusions’ by strangers were still happening this summer – months after Smith’s conviction and during Travelodge’s period of supposed improved security training
But due to a flawed internal process, the email did not come to the CEO Boydell’s attention at that stage – or at any stage during Smith’s subsequent trial and conviction – until March 6, 2026, following media reporting on the scandal.
From the formal complaint email, Travelodge appointed the same member of staff who Lily had initially reported the incident to, at Travelodge Maidenhead.
The subsequent ‘investigation’ was ‘inadequate’ and ‘downplayed to a substantial extent the seriousness of what had happened’, the report found.
Nothing further was done with the complaint email, and there was no review of room security policies.
Insultingly, Lily* was offered a refund of the night’s stay after her sexual assault – equivalent to £30.
The report called the response ‘simply appalling’ and said the response was ‘driven not by a genuine desire to resolve Lily’s concerns and learn from her experience’ but by ‘a desire to get rid of the complaint as quickly and cheaply as possible’.
It added: ‘Lily’s treatment by members of Travelodge staff in December 2022 was nothing short of disgraceful, but that was largely down to systemic failures by Travelodge as an organisation, as opposed to failings by the individuals concerned
‘I am highly critical of the policies and procedures that were in place for room security in Travelodge hotels in 2022.
‘The policies and procedures were capable of ready exploitation and circumvention by a hostile actor such as Kyran Smith. They were not fit for the purpose of keeping guests safe.’
A victim personal impact statement written by Lily and read to the court at Smith’s trial said: ‘From the perspective of Travelodge and because the assault happened there, I feel that there is no way I would want to stay in a hotel again on my own.
‘It comes from being in a position of trust. I did not expect this kind of thing from Kyran, and I certainly did not expect to be put in such a position by the Travelodge’s lax security procedures … customers have a right to feel safe and secure in their own rooms. I certainly did nothing wrong and ensured my door was locked and shut.’
A spokesperson for Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead said: ‘We take the issues raised by this incident extremely seriously and will be discussing the findings of the independent report with South Oxfordshire District Council, who are Travelodge’s primary authority, in line with our responsibilities for enforcing health and safety legislation.
‘We’ll also consider any relevant implications through our Community Safety Partnership, including our work to tackle violence against women and girls.’
Jo Boydell stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of the Group on August 17, 2026. Ray Reidy, who had been Chief Financial Officer since April 2025, was since appointed interim CEO.
Responding to the report today, Mr Reidy said: ‘The independent review published today makes it clear that there were failures in Travelodge’s room access security policies and procedures and in the way customers have been treated.
‘I apologise unreservedly on behalf of Travelodge to all guests where we have failed, and particularly to Lily.
‘We have made significant progress in preventing and addressing these issues over the past six months, and we recognise we still have further to go. We are working hard to transform our customer service so we respond appropriately when things don’t go right. We will continue to improve so customers get the right level of support and empathy when they need it most.
‘That is why we are dedicating significant resources as well as implementing governance changes needed to drive the ongoing improvements. We will continue to work with UKHospitality and other partners to elevate standards both within Travelodge and across the wider sector.
‘I would like to thank Paul Greaney KC for the robust recommendations and all the valuable suggestions in the review. We are committed to making the changes required to improve safety and security in our hotels.’
*The victim’s name has been changed to protect her identity.
