  The photoproduction of $D^{*\pm} (2010)$ mesons associated with a leading
neutron has been observed with the ZEUS detector in $ep$ collisions at HERA
using an integrated luminosity of 80 pb$^{-1}$. The neutron carries a large
fraction, {$x_L>0.2$}, of the incoming proton beam energy and is detected at
very small production angles, {$\theta_n<0.8$ mrad}, an indication of
peripheral scattering. The $D^*$ meson is centrally produced with
pseudorapidity {$|\eta|<1.5$}, and has a transverse momentum {$p_{\it T} > 1.9$
GeV}, which is large compared to the average transverse momentum of the neutron
of 0.22 GeV. The ratio of neutron-tagged to inclusive $D^*$ production is
$8.85\pm 0.93({\rm stat.})^{+0.48}_{-0.61}({\rm syst.})\%$ in the photon-proton
center-of-mass energy range {$130 <W<280$ GeV}. The data suggest that the
presence of a hard scale enhances the fraction of events with a leading neutron
in the final state.
