Travelodge's CEO resigns four years after staff handed a stranger a room key

Jo Boydell steps down with immediate effect, replaced on an interim basis by CFO Ray Reidy, following the 2022 Maidenhead assault in which a man who deceived staff into giving him a key card sexually assaulted a guest, as the BBC reported. The attacker got seven and a half years in prison; Travelodge's initial response was reportedly to offer the victim a £30 refund. Every additional room key now requires the guest's explicit permission, every UK hotel has been checked for secondary deadbolts, and roughly 12,000 staff have been retrained, with barrister Paul Greaney KC running an independent review. More than 20 MPs and peers had demanded a meeting with Boydell before she quit, and one called her departure inevitable once the pattern of complaints became public.