Madeleine McCann’s sister has said an alleged stalker sent her letters and edited photographs to make her look more like her missing sibling.
Amelie McCann said the ‘creepy’ messages from Julia Wandelt made her feel ‘uncomfortable’ and she blocked her on several social media websites to prevent her from getting in touch.
During a hearing at Leicester Crown Court, prosecutor Nadia Silver said the messages from Wandelt, who has claimed to be the missing girl, included requests for a DNA test and alleged memories from their childhood such as playing Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses with other children.
Amelie said she felt the messages from Wandelt, 24, were ‘trying to play with [her] emotions’.
She added the communication had a ‘sound of desperation’ which put ‘a lot of stress’ on her.
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Ms McCann said: ‘I didn’t like it, it made me feel very uncomfortable and I’m not sure if it was this one but she clearly altered or edited the pictures to make it look more like her, which is quite disturbing.
‘It was quite distressing to see the messages. As you can see, it’s a long message and there’s a sound of desperation in her message which puts quite a lot of stress on me.
‘I felt uncomfortable about it because I don’t want to receive messages like that.
‘It is quite disturbing that she’s coming up with these supposed memories even though she’s not Madeleine.’
She added she declined to do a DNA test with Wandelt to prove she was the missing youngster because she ‘always knew she wasn’t Madeleine.’
Wandelt, a Polish national, is on trial at Leicester Crown Court, accused of stalking Maddie and Amelie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, as well as their brother Sean.
Wandelt, who is on trial alongside 61-year-old Karen Spragg, is accused of turning up at the McCanns’ family home and signing a letter addressed to them as Madeleine.
Wandelt, 24, claimed she is the missing girl who disappeared from a holiday villa in Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007 and remains unsolved.
Wandelt and Spragg, of Caerau Court Road in Caerau, Cardiff, both deny a count of stalking causing serious alarm and distress to Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February 2025.
The trial continues.
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