A 71-year-old grandmother from Rose Bay has been charged with six graffiti offenses following a six-month investigation into anti-Israel vandalism across Sydney’s eastern suburbs, according to Sky News Australia.
Reporter Sharri Markson revealed that the New South Wales Police Force visited the home of acupuncturist Shona Barker on Tuesday evening and charged her with four counts of intentionally marking premises without consent, aggravated, and two counts of intentionally marking premises without prescribed consent.
EXCLUSIVE: Police have tonight charged a 71-year-old grandmother over a string of anti-Israel graffiti incidents in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) December 2, 2025
Police visited Rose Bay acupuncturist, Shona Barker, charging her with six graffiti offences.
Video report here:https://t.co/MoHSyl0OrZ
Since mid-July, residents along O’Sullivan Road discovered fresh graffiti nearly every week, with walls, real estate signs and residential fences marked with anti-Israel slogans and messages including references to genocide and calls for boycotts, including “Free Palestine” and “Boycott Israel.”
Local residents organized themselves, installed motion-activated cameras and conducted early morning patrols to monitor streets before dawn, ultimately providing crucial evidence to police, according to Markson’s account.
“We decided to take matters into our own hands so little by little we worked out predictable patterns of where and when, and we thought if we can identify her and maybe film her doing it we can present that to the police and they can help make it stop,” one local said.
The charges come amid a broader wave of antisemitic incidents in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including recent vandalism at Bondi Beach currently under police investigation.
Barker was issued a court attendance notice to appear at Downing Centre Local Court on Jan. 16, 2026.
