A British woman who is married to a Jewish anti-Zionist activist has been convicted of theft in connection with a 2024 incident in which she removed an Israeli hostage poster and threw it in the trash.

Fiona Monro, 58, of Brighton, England, was found guilty of theft, but not convicted of criminal damage in charges stemming from a February 2024 incident in which she took a large laminated poster of Israeli hostage Tzachi Idan that was hanging in a memorial in a public park and disposed of it.

A relative of Idan who lives in a neighboring town, Howe, returned the poster to the memorial site after Monro threw it away. A week later, Monro also wrote the phrase “Pray for the 30,000 murdered Palestinians” on the memorial but was acquitted of charges related to the vandalism, according to Brighton and Hove News.

The incident came at a time when Israeli hostage posters were being vandalized frequently by activists across the globe who said they were protesting the war in Gaza. The war began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

During the assault, gunmen stormed the Idan home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, shooting dead the oldest daughter, Maayan, in front of her father. A video, filmed by the terrorists and circulated on social media, showed gunmen standing over the rest of the family as they huddled on the floor of their home. Idan was eventually abducted and killed in Hamas captivity, and his remains were returned to Israel a year ago during a negotiated ceasefire.

“This crime was one out of 50 times the memorial was vandalized and it took two years to get justice. But it is possible to get a win,” Heidi Bachram, one of the memorial’s organizers, told the Jewish News following Monro’s conviction. “We cannot let hateful people get away with attacking us.”

Monro told police that the memorial located in Brighton’s Palmeira Square “did not represent the Jewish community,” citing her marriage to the prominent activist Tony Greenstein. Greenstein was expelled from Great Britain’s Labour Party in 2018 over his social media comments about Israel, which his party deemed antisemitic.

“The board was clearly there to justify the genocide that was happening,” Monro said in the police interview. “A large laminated board with a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory to many people in that community, [who] clearly found it very upsetting to have that constantly thrust in our face daily.”

It’s been a TERRIBLE time for justice and a bad week in my city of Brighton. But this woman was convicted today of theft for stealing our 7/10 memorial board back in 2024. One tiny bright spot in the darkness. pic.twitter.com/KtfcpJZhVT — Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) February 13, 2026

It’s been a TERRIBLE time for justice and a bad week in my city of Brighton. But this woman was convicted today of theft for stealing our 7/10 memorial board back in 2024. One tiny bright spot in the darkness. pic.twitter.com/KtfcpJZhVT

— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) February 13, 2026

After Monro’s lawyer, Hamish McCallum, requested that the jury consider whether it was proportionate to convict her on the basis she was exercising her right to express her political views, Judge Stephen Mooney rejected the proposal.

“This is not therefore a case of the state seeking to prosecute the defendant disproportionately for expressing her own views or otherwise interfering with her rights,” said Mooney. “It is a case of the state prosecuting the defendant for putting her views above those of others and causing them wholly unnecessary distress by so doing.”

Mooney gave Monro an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered her to pay $1,637 in prosecution costs.

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