An undercover police officer who spied on anti-racist groups has been accused of attempting to incite two political activists to set fire to a charity shop that was allegedly operated as a fascist front.

Two anti-fascist activists claim the undercover officer – who adopted the fake identity of Carlo Neri to infiltrate leftwing campaign groups for four years – suggested the idea at a New Year’s Eve party they were attending.



Joe Batty, one of the activists, said Neri had proposed that they go and see the charity shop, which was a few minutes’ walk away in London. He said that he and his fellow activists had been drinking, but Neri less so.

He said a group went round to see the shop and then returned to the party at Neri’s home. According to Batty, Neri then made the suggestion in an indirect way. “He said something along the lines of ‘it would be unfortunate if it was set alight’, or something like that. It was leading the horses to water to see if they would drink.”

Batty, a social worker, said he believed Neri was fishing around to see who in the group might take an interest in the idea.

He said he had grown close to Neri, who had often said he felt strongly about the 1980 bombing of Bologna railway station, in which 85 people were killed, claiming that his parents came from that region of Italy. The charity shop was run by an Italian fascist who had fled to London and been convicted in his absence of being a member of a group implicated in the Bologna bombing.

Dan Gilman, another anti-fascist activist befriended by Neri, said that shortly after the New Year’s Eve party, Neri raised the suggestion again. “There was definitely talk of a petrol bomb from him,” he said.

He said he and Batty had been in a car that the undercover spy had driven past the charity shop. According to Gilman, Neri said this was to “show us how to do what had been talked about”.

Batty and Gilman, a teacher, said they would not have set fire to the shop because they reject all forms of terrorism. The activists make their allegations in a new edition of a book that is published on Friday.

Their claims raise further questions about the conduct of the undercover officers sent to infiltrate hundreds of political groups since 1968. Other s have also been accused of acting as agents provocateurs, despite police rules forbidding such behaviour.

The activities of the more than 100 undercover officers are due to be examined by a public inquiry led by Lord Justice Pitchford. The inquiry will examine revelations that the spies gathered intelligence on grieving families, deceived women into long-term relationships and hid evidence in court cases.

The spy pretending to be Neri was exposed this year after it was revealed that while he was undercover, pretending to be a leftwing campaigner, he had a two-year relationship with a woman.

She claims he asked her to marry him – a proposal she accepted – and told her that he wanted a baby with her. He did not tell her that he already had a wife and child and was working undercover to spy on her and her friends.

Neri started his mission to infiltrate anti-racist campaign groups and the Socialist party in 2001. He asked the woman to marry him at the same New Year’s Eve party, to celebrate the start of 2003, at which he allegedly raised the idea of an attack on the charity shop.

The Metropolitan police said they maintained their position of neither confirming nor denying if an individual had worked undercover.

They added that the deployment of the undercover officers “will be subject to the most intrusive scrutiny by the ongoing public inquiry into undercover policing. Lord Justice Pitchford has clearly set out how interested parties can give evidence to the inquiry. The Metropolitan police service is and will continue to cooperate fully with the inquiry.”.

The Met added that it would encourage anyone who alleged that an undercover officer had sought to encourage others to break the law to report their concerns to the internal police inquiry, known as Operation Herne.



The updated book – Blacklisted: The Secret War between Big Business and Union Activists, by Phil Chamberlain and Dave Smith – describes how major firms denied work to thousands of trade unionists, and examines allegations that police secretly shared intelligence with the firms.

Caroline Lucas, the Green MP who has highlighted allegations in parliament that Bob Lambert, another undercover officer, set fire to a Debenhams store, said: “Carlo Neri, just like every other undercover officer who has deceived his way into personal and political relationships, was presumably following orders and it’s vital that, as well as preventing such fundamental abuses of basic rights from happening in future, all those responsible are brought to justice.”