Four Door Mk4 Golf (1998). After opening and closing door and driving off one of the dear doors flew open, thankfully without doing any damage.
Examined the latching mechanism - nothing obviously amiss but still failed to latch. Then closed the door again and it latched but will NOT now open, even after operating the central locking a few times.
There is obviously something broken in the latching mechanism although in the open position it did not look unlike the other doors latching systems.
Problem now is how to get at the lock to examine/replace the mechanism with it not now being possible to open the door.
Any ideas:
a) what the problem is and how to rectify it and
b) how to open the door to get at the mechanism.

please