A Polish woman who claimed to be missing Madeleine McCann broke down in tears when a jury was told she is not the missing girl.
Julia Wandelt shouted out ‘no’ in Polish before rushing to the back of the dock when prosecutor Michael Duck KC said there was ‘scientific evidence’ she is not Madeleine.
Wandelt, 24, went on trial on Monday accused of stalking Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry, by calling them, emailing them and turning up at their home in Rothley in Leicestershire.
The court heard that on one day alone, she called Kate McCann 60 times, referring to her as ‘mommy’ and claiming to have memories of the night she was abducted.
She also sent messages and pictures of herself to Amelie McCann, one of Madeleine’s younger siblings, along with a message begging for a DNA test, the court heard.
She is accused of turning up at Gerry and Kate McCann’s Leicestershire home with co-accused Julia Wandelt (pictured), 23, a Polish woman who has claimed to be the couple’s missing daughter Madeleine
Madeleine McCann’s (pictured) disappearance while on a family holiday in Portugal’s Algarve at the age of three in 2007 is one of the most widely reported missing child cases in history and remains unsolved
Wandelt, a Polish national, appeared at Leicester Crown Court alongside Karen Spragg, 61, of Caerau in Cardiff, who is also accused of stalking Kate and Gerry McCann causing them ‘serious alarm or distress’ between June 1 2022 and 21st February 2025.
Wandelt is in custody, Spragg is on conditional bail. They both deny the charges.
The court heard that from June 2022 Wandelt ‘began to make attempts to persuade anybody who was prepared to listen that she was Madeleine McCann’.
Prosecutor Micheal Duck KC said Wandelt, for a period of three years, ‘pursued the myth she was Madeleine McCann’ and pursued Kate and Gerry by ‘electronic communication, direct telephone calls, visits to their village and ultimately visits to their home address’.
Mr Duck told the jury: ‘Her contention over the almost three years which followed was that she must have been abducted and taken to Poland where she lived with people who erroneously claimed to be her natural birth parents.’
She also claimed to have memories ‘of the manner of her abduction’ and of being Madeleine.
Mr Duck said those memories included, on occasions, reporting to remember growing up in the McCann household and interacting with Madeleine’s younger twin siblings Sean and Amelie, now in their 20s.
He said she also remembered ‘being part of family events and very specific family events’.
‘One might be tempted to think that this has some measure of credibility but can we, at this very early stage in this trial make this clear: Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann.’
It was at this point Wandelt called out ‘no’ in Polish and broke down in tears before moving to the back of the dock where she was comforted by Spragg.
When the case resumed after a short break, Mr Duck told jurors they will hear ‘unequivocal scientific evidence’ that Madeleine McCann is the natural daughter of Kate and Gerry McCann and ‘this lady Julia Wandelt has no familial line to them at all’.
He said there was evidence Wandelt used AI tool Chatgpt to try to back up her claims and when evidence did not fit she simply ‘moved the goalposts’.
Mr Duck said: ‘Why Julia Wandelt chose to pursue the entirely false claim that she was Madeleine McCann may not be a straightforward question to answer and, fortunately, it is not one which you are required to answer.
‘Because whatever belief you may hold, nothing gives you the right to pursue and stalk people just because you want them to bend to your will and do as you demand or request.’
The court heard she sent a message on social media to Amelie McCann along with images ‘designed to persuade Amelie that there were similarities between them to support the connection they were someway related’.
He said those images had been manipulated and features of them altered ‘in an attempt to persuade the viewer that those two individuals were more alike than they were’. They were recovered from Wandelt’s phone when she was arrested in February.
Mr Duck said there were ‘basic facts’ which showed she was not Madeleine, including that they were not the same age.
He said when faced with awkward questions Wandelt ‘adjusts her contentions and tries to explain it away’ by suggesting it was ‘not difficult to fake a date of birth certificate’ and claiming she looked younger than he years.
Mr Duck said: ‘But when faced with unequivocal scientific evidence you have no where to go.’
The court heard she also did not limit her claims to being Madeleine, and at one point claimed to be another missing child, German Inga Gerhicke and later Acacia Bishop, who was abducted from her great grandmother’s house in Salt Lake City, Utah.
He said it was in June 2020 that she first started trying to contact the McCanns, and called the hospital where they both worked.
She got through to the hospital communications manager ‘and engaged in a lengthy conversation in which said that she believed that she was Madeleine McCann’.
Mr Duck said that on that occasion her attempt was foiled but ‘far from being deterred, she made further attempts’ to contact them.
She emailled Gerry McCann in June 2023 claiming she had ‘similar shape of ears, face, lips and I have the gap between the teeth’ as Madeleine and claiming to have no memory of her childhood adding: ‘I can be your daughter it is very possible I am her.’
In the message to Amelie, sent in January 2024, she wrote: ‘I know you will probably not answer me but I will try. I am this girl that went viral saying I was Madeleine McCann.’
She told her that she had flashbacks and memories of being Madeleine which Mr Duck said was an attempt to ‘manipulate’.
She wrote: ‘Can you do a DAA test with me I will pay for it. I am not crazy, media made me look crazy
I need you to believe me Amelie. I can tell you about my memories’ before urging her to ask Kate about an Opal gold necklace saying ‘ask your mother if she ever had anything like this’. She finished the note: ‘Write me I beg you.’
Mr Duck said: These memories simply can’t have existed’.
He said Amelie didn’t reply and did not tell her parents out of ‘concern about the effects on them’.
Mr Duck said Wandelt was ‘once again not deterred by the refusal to engage simply adjusted her approach and her target’.
In April 2024 she managed to get hold of Kate’s mobile number, which she has not changed since Madeleine disappeared.
During a single day in April 2024 Wandelt called or messaged Kate’s telephone on over 60 occasions.
Jurors were played a voicemail left by Wandelt on Kate’s phone in which she said: ‘Please try. We have nothing to lose, if I am her…. I know I am fat and not pretty like Madeleine was in the past but I know what I know and I know what I remember.
‘And I know there is large corruption out there. Don’t give up on your daughter I am not a liar I am not crazy I just want to know they truth.’
She also sent messages claiming she knew things only ‘you and Madeleine and Gerry would know’ which Mr Duck said was a ‘piece of stark manipulation’.
In another message she said: ‘I know I am fat and ugly I have depression and PTSD but please give me one chance. I beg you you are my real mother I remember you give me a chance to prove it.’
In another she said: ‘You are mommy you know it is me.’
She claimed to remember spoon feeding Sean in the family kitchen adding: ‘I remember you came to the room before the abduction happened and you were rubbing my head saying you loved me and would find me.’
Opening the prosecution on Monday, Mr Duck told jurors that one of the ‘many tragic consequences for Madeleine’s’ parents, Kate and Gerry McCann has been their constant inability to escape that unwanted glare of publicity that came with that tragedy.
He said their faces have become ‘immediately recognisable worldwide’ and the attention they have received has not always been compassionate.
Mr Duck said: ‘They have been embraced by millions of people around the world who empathise with their position but there remain a group of individuals which continues to fail to acknowledge their plight and perpetuates conspiracy theories which heap further misery upon the McCann family.
‘Unfortunately these two defendants belong to that latter group but as far as they are concerned their behvaiour is not typified by an offhand comment in a newspaper comments page or a some post on social media it .. reflects a well planned campaign of harassment which extended, in Julia Wandelt’s case for over two and a half years.’
Mr Duck said that in the time since Madeleine’s disappearance on 3rd May 2007 the McCanns have had to endure ‘not just the unimaginable trauma of not knowing the whereabouts of their young daughter but also the compounding of that trauma caused by the vitriol which some members of the public have chosen to continue to demonstrate’.
He said: ‘It is a sad fact that being thrown into the public limelight can cause you to be subjected to the cruellest of taunts and to be regarded as a legitimate target for those who possess their own inexplicable motives.’
The trial, due to last three weeks, continues.
Karen Spragg, 60, pictured arriving at Leicester Magistrates Court earlier this year
It is alleged she made unwanted contact with the McCanns, turned up at their address and sent letters, calls, voicemails and WhatsApp messages, which amounted to stalking. Pictured: Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann
Madeleine McCann’s disappearance while on a family holiday in Portugal’s Algarve at the age of three in 2007 is one of the most widely reported missing child cases in history and remains unsolved.
