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Incident erupts over lunch as mother confronts principal during school hours

Published: 01 Sep. 2025, 16:22

Close up of a court mallet [GETTY IMAGES BANK]

A mother dumped a tray of school lunch on a middle school principal’s head in front of students, furious over a missed meeting with the educator, and now faces a suspended prison sentence.

The Daegu District Court on Monday sentenced a 50-year-old woman to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for inflicting aggravated bodily injury, a charge applied when violence involves a weapon or two or more people. She was also ordered to undergo two years of probation and complete 120 hours of community service.

The incident occurred in June at a middle school cafeteria in Dong, Daegu, where the woman confronted the 61-year-old female principal and verbally abused her, saying, “How can you be shoving food down your throat right now?” before flipping a tray of food onto the principal’s head.

The woman then threw the empty tray at the principal and grabbed her by the collar, shaking her violently. The principal suffered injuries requiring two weeks of medical treatment.

The altercation reportedly stemmed from the woman’s anger at discovering the principal eating in the cafeteria without having waited for her, after the principal had asked the woman to come to school for a consultation regarding her child.

Even after being told to leave the school grounds, the woman visited the principal’s office multiple times to confront the principal. Despite repeated requests from the head of student affairs to leave, the woman refused to exit the premises and remained until police arrived in response to a 112 emergency call.

“Dumping food on the victim’s head in front of many students likely caused significant psychological distress not only to the victim but also to the teachers and students who witnessed it,” the court said in the ruling.

“The court considered several factors including the fact that the victim has not forgiven the defendant, that the defendant admitted to wrongdoing, that she did not strike the victim directly with the tray and that the injury was not severe.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]