Woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann stalked missing girl’s parents, court told

A woman claiming to be Madeleine McCann broke down in the dock as a Leicester jury was told she was a conspiracy theorist who could not be the missing child.

Julia Wandelt, 24, is accused of stalking Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of Madeleine who was three when she disappeared on holiday in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.

At the opening of her trial, she was described by the prosecution as an emotional manipulator who launched a three year-long “campaign of harassment” against the McCanns, including calls, messages and turning up at their address.

The crown court jury was told that Wandelt, from Poland, would claim to have memories of being in their household, being part of family events and playing with Madeleine’s siblings, though this should not be believed.

The prosecutor, Michael Duck KC, said: “One might be tempted to think that has some measure of credibility. But at this very early stage of the trial, can we make it clear that Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann.”

At these words, Wandelt, wearing a white shirt, began crying loudly, stood up and attempted to leave the dock through a back door leading to the cells.

She was comforted by her co-defendant Karen Spragg, 61, who hugged her and appeared to be telling her to stay calm. Spragg, from Cardiff, is accused of joining Wandelt in her stalking campaign of the McCanns. The pair deny the charges.

Duck said Wandelt had “no familial link” to the McCanns and that, during the trial, the jury would be shown detailed scientific evidence to support that.

He said Wandelt was nearly two years older than Madeleine would be, an inconvenient truth that she had tried to make excuses for by saying that she looked young for her age.

“When faced with awkward propositions, attempts were made to find a way around them” but she had “nowhere to go” when faced with scientific evidence, he said.

The jury was told she had previously pretended to be two other missing children, Inga Gehricke from Germany, who was born eight years after her, and Acacia Bishop from the US, whose grandmother stood trial for the girl’s murder but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The court heard how Wandelt used ChatGPT to make fake pictures that she sent to Madeleine’s younger sister, who is now an adult, that purported to show them both as young children.

In messages to Amelie McCann that Duck described as “emotional manipulation of the first order”, Wandelt introduced herself as “this girl that went viral saying she thinks she’s Madeleine McCann”. She said she had had hypnosis and “got so many flashbacks” about being Madeleine, something the prosecutor said would have been “extremely distressing” for Amelie.

Wandelt is also accused of sending messages, voicemails, emails and letters to Kate and Gerry McCann, as well as turning up in their Leicestershire village and at their home between 1 June 2022 and 21 February this year.

The jury was told how she called Kate McCann’s number on what appeared to be 60 occasions and left voicemails that were played to the court.

In one, Wandelt could be heard to say: “If I’m her then everything will be OK, and if I’m not, as you probably think, then I will leave you alone.”

She said: “I know I look fat and I know I’m not pretty … but I know what I know and I know what I remember.”

Wandelt blamed “large corruption” for the reason she had not been identified as Madeleine, and said the media had made her “look crazy”, adding: “Don’t give up on our daughter because I’m not a liar and I’m not crazy.”

The trial continues.