A couple were left “petrified” when a shirtless man entered their hotel room in the middle of the night after he was mistakenly given a key card to their door.

Kim Hutchison, 60, and Harry Grieve, 57, from Buckie, Moray, were staying in Dundee’s Strathmore Avenue branch after visiting relatives when the unexpected encounter took place in early July.

The Scottish couple said they were sleeping when they heard the door “click” at 2am, jolting them up.

Ms Hutchinson, a florist, said she woke up and sat up in bed as soon as she heard the door open. She a saw a man at the bottom of the bed with just shorts on, holding what appeared to be a key card for the room.

When she asked why he was in the room, he responded saying: “This is my room.”

Ms Hutchinson told BBC Scotland: "He kept saying '316' and I said 'no this is 313'. He was adamant it was his room.”

After an exchange of strong words between the couple and the man, he left – though he was in the room for around a minute.

Mr Grieve said he went down to reception to try and find out what had happened but found no one at the desk. However, police arrived later due to a call about another disturbance at the hotel around the same time. It is understood no arrests were made.

The couple claimed that they did not hear back from Travelodge for two weeks despite them sending various emails and attempted calls to the company.

They were eventually given a refund for their stay, as well as a £100 Travelodge voucher.

Travelodge has faced increased scrutiny in recent months after a man was jailed for sexually assaulting a woman at a hotel in Maidenhead, after staff handed him a key card.

Kyran Smith had gone to the reception of the Maidenhead branch of the hotel chain in the early hours in December 2022 and claimed he was the woman's boyfriend. After he was given the room door number and key card, he sexually assaulted her.

In April this year, a stranger walked into a couple’s room at a Travelodge hotel in Lincoln after being given their key card by staff.

The company said it was also investigating more reports of strangers accessing rooms after two women told the BBC that strangers came into their rooms while they were alone.

Travelodge apologised to the couple, as they said: "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.”

The company added that they commissioned an independent review to example their room access security policies and escalation procedures.

They have also conducted an internal review and have made changes to their room access security policy.