Two women were left stranded in a hotel after staff lost their car keys.

Ruth Creed, 30, and her heavily pregnant friend Emma Sillitoe, 32, arrived at the Lansdowne Place Hotel in Lansdowne Place, Hove, at 11am on Saturday for a one night stay.

Miss Creed, a solicitor, parked her car underneath the hotel and gave her keys to the duty manager in case they needed to move the vehicle.

But when she checked out at 11am on Sunday, the keys were nowhere to be found.

Miss Creed said the hotel staff spent two hours searching for the keys but eventually called a courier service to pick up her spare set from her parents' home in Worcester.

She said: "You can park your car underneath the hotel but they keep the keys in case they need to move it because a lot of the cars are double parked.

"We came to check out and they could not find them.

"We were sat in reception and were told the keys would not be here until 8pm."

Ms Sillitoe, from Orpington, Kent, had arranged a babysitter for her two children so she could join Miss Creed at the hotel but had to make emergency childcare arrangements when staff could not find the car keys.

Miss Creed, from Worcester, said: "I was meant to be driving my friend to her home in Kent because she needed to get back for her children.

"She has had to pay out for another day's babysitting which is more expense for her and she is heavily pregnant.

"She also does private tutoring and had to cancel a lesson.

Miss Creed said she and Ms Sillitoe had paid more than £350 on one night's accommodation, meals and beauty treatments at the hotel.

She said the hotel manager eventually offered to give her £203 compensation, the cost of her hotel room.

She said: "I have got to replace my spare key which is going to cost me about £100.

"It was my first time in Brighton and I was having a lovely weekend but it ended in complete disaster."

The Lansdowne Place Hotel refused to comment.