AN East Lancs hotel manager has spoken of her shock after discovering a room hired out to host a party for armed forces veterans was actually staging a far-right conference – complete with baseball bat-carrying security guards on the door.

The Samlesbury Hotel unwittingly ended up as the venue for the annual gathering of self-styled 'racial nationalist' group Heritage and Destiny earlier this month – with police ultimately being called to bring the event to an end.

The organisation had told those travelling to the private function to meet at 'redirection points', as the location was not publicised in advance.

As the LDRS reported in the days leading up the group’s yearly get-together on 9th September, attendees were coming together to commemorate figures like the 1930s founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley, and the late ‘White power’ musician, Ian Stuart Donaldson.

Neither that itinerary nor the list of speakers at the event – which it has since emerged included a Spanish neo-Nazi banned from Germany – was known to management or staff at the highly-rated Samlesbury Hotel, one of its senior managers has said.

The independently-run venue, on Preston New Road, had reserved a conference room in good faith for a purported reunion party for veterans.

That had led the hotel’s operations manager to expect guests wearing poppies – not bearing baseball bats.

Liz, who asked not to be fully named, said worried staff contacted her on her day off when they became concerned “for guest safety”.  The hotel boss was stunned by the scene that greeted her on her arrival.

She said: “I found security guards on our function suite doors with metal baseball bats, which I insisted were put away immediately.

“I asked [event organiser] Mark Cotterill to leave, on the basis he had booked the function under false pretences – but he refused and said he had paid for a certain length of time.

“I just wanted them gone – I had guests in the hotel with families and children.

“In no way was the hotel complicit with the events that occurred on the day.  As soon as [we knew what was happening], we got rid of them as quickly as we could."

Police were called in amid scenes of merchandise with swastikas being sold at the event.

The hotel says it had even charged a reduced rate as a goodwill gesture as some staff are armed forces veterans.

One speaker at the event was Isabel Peralta, said by anti-Fascist magazine Searchlight to be banned from Germany

Dave Savage, a |Trades Union Council secretary in South Ribble, said the organisation was demanding “an explanation” from the Home Secretary about why Peralta was allowed into the country.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Extremism has no place in our society. We work closely with law enforcement, local communities and our international partners to tackle groups and individuals who sow division and hatred.”

Mark Cotterill, editor of the Heritage and Destiny magazine and organiser of the group’s annual meeting, said Peralta was stopped by what he describes as “the political police” at Manchester Airport, under the Terrorism Act but was allowed to enter the country.

Other speakers at the event included senior figures from far-right group Patriotic Alternative.

Mr Cotterill acknowledged eight to 10 security guards were present at the hotel but denied they were armed with metal baseball bats.

He added: "The security staff were there to protect both meeting attendees and hotel staff alike, just in case thugs from the Labour Party or Socialist Worker Party tried to attack it – as they have done to other nationalist meetings in the past.”

He insisted no hotel staff were threatenedand that although police did arrive “about an hour before the meeting ended”, he did not believe they entered the function room.

“The police have my telephone number – if there had been any issues, I’m sure they would have called me or come and spoken to me, but they did not,” Mr. Cotterill said.

He said he was not aware of any offensive or inappropriate merchandise being sold, again stating police would have arrested anyone doing so

Mr. Cotterill also claimed there had been no secrecy in his dealings with the Samlesbury Hotel, but said “if the booking was taken in our real name, the Communists and their Labour and Socialist Worker Party lackies would have found out and got our venue cancelled”.