Four witnesses have testified at a public inquiry that an undercover police officer carried out an arson attack on a well-known high street department store while pretending to be an ardent animal rights campaigner.
Their testimony directly contradicts consistent denials by the undercover officer Bob Lambert, who says he did not set fire to a London branch of Debenhams, causing damage totalling £340,000.
Starting on Monday, the undercover policing inquiry is due to question Lambert for a week about his controversial deployment of infiltrating animal rights campaigners and anarchists for five years in the 1980s.
It is the first time Lambert has been formally held to account in public for his conduct as an undercover officer.
He is a prominent figure in the scandal surrounding the police’s use of undercover officers to spy on tens of thousands of political activists between 1968 and 2010.
Lambert will also be questioned about how he fathered a child with an activist and then vanished for decades from their lives. He also formed intimate relationships with three other women while concealing from them the fact that he was married with children and was a police spy.
Another key question centres on longstanding claims – previously aired in parliament – that Lambert was a member of a coordinated group that planted incendiary devices in Debenhams stores in 1987.
If true, it would mean that a serving police officer, tasked with preventing crime, set alight a leading high street store in a major act of criminal damage. The current value of the damage caused would now be in the region of £960,000.
Lambert was commended for his undercover work and credited with gaining the information that led to the convictions of activists for the arson attacks on the Debenhams stores.
He is likely to be questioned about how he obtained detailed information about the conspiracy which he submitted in a series of reports to his superiors.
Two activists who admit their involvement in the arson plot have testified at the inquiry. Geoff Sheppard, who was jailed over the plot, said a group of four activists carried out the arson attacks.
He said Lambert was “an integral part” of the group, acting as a “charismatic, forceful” leader. “He was definitely very keen on carrying out these actions. He was definitely very active … in the planning stages pushing it forward, wanting to make this thing happen.”
Sheppard added that Lambert and the three activists met in a house in Haringey, north London on 11 July 1987, collected the incendiary devices and then set off to plant them in their designated branches of Debenhams. Lambert’s target was the Harrow branch, which was later that day set on fire, he added.
The second activist, Paul Gravett, echoed Sheppard’s version of events. Gravett was never arrested for his part in the plot. However, he has come forward to break decades of silence and detail his involvement to the inquiry. In return, he has been granted immunity from prosecution.
He said Lambert had initiated the arson plot by suggesting that the activists should step up their protests against the fur trade. He added the activists believed that Lambert was a trusted campaigner as he had by then committed other criminal acts to further the cause of animal rights.
Another activist, Helen Steel, also accused Lambert of being involved in the arson attacks. The inquiry has heard evidence that Lambert and the rest of the group held clandestine meetings in parks in the run-up to the attacks. Steel said she attended one of these meetings at which Lambert was present, but declined to participate in the plot. She said Lambert later spoke to her and other campaigners about his role in the attacks.
Steel was deceived into a two-year relationship by another undercover officer, John Dines, whom she exposed after piecing together clues.
Belinda Harvey had an 18-month relationship with Lambert in 1987 and 1988 when he did not disclose to her his true identity.
She said Lambert discussed the plan to set fire to the Debenhams stores “on several occasions before they happened”. When asked if she was clear that he was going to be one of the people planting the devices, she replied: “Hundred per cent he was one of the people.”
Harvey thought the arson attacks were “so wrong” and tried to dissuade him, but he replied :“Oh, I can’t; I am in it too deep.” Lambert denies her account and says he did not know about the attacks in advance.
