Dad mistaken for paedophile after booking hotel room with teenage daughter
A father visiting his cancer-stricken mother with his teenage daughter has been confronted by hotel staff and police, accused of being a paedophile.
Karl Pollard, 46, and his daughter Stephanie, 14, were staying at Macclesfield Travelodge in Manchester on what he described to UK media as an already emotional trip.
After a four-hour journey on the train from their home in south Wales, the pair checked into the budget accommodation, which was just a 20-minute walk away from where his mother was staying.
Mr Pollard said the staff at the front desk gave him a strange look but he didn’t think much of it and made his way upstairs to freshen up before their visit.
“About 10 minutes later there was a knock at the door. A policewoman was standing there. I thought something had happened to my mum or my wife,” Mr Pollard said, as reported in the Manchester Evening News .
“But she said, ‘We've had a call from Travelodge, they believe you are a paedophile grooming underage girls’.
“One minute I was brushing my teeth, the next I was being told I was a paedophile.”
He said the horror of the situation was compounded when police interviewed his daughter separately, leaving her in tears.
The distraught father said he eventually proved that Stephanie was his daughter but was not offered a refund for his $226 booking.
While Mr Pollard said he was "treated digustingly", Cheshire Police said Travelodge did the right thing by raising their suspicions.
"Police were called at 3pm on Thursday 8 February to reports of suspicious activity at a hotel on Waters Green in Macclesfield," Cheshire Police told the Manchester Evening News.
"Staff at the Travelodge did the right thing by reporting what they believed to be suspicious activity to officers, although thankfully there was nothing untoward and it turned out to be a misunderstanding."
Yahoo7 News has contacted Travelodge for comment.
