Julia Wandelt has been found guilty of harassing Madeleine McCann’s parents, but not guilty of stalking them.
Polish national Julia Wandelt, 24, and 61-year-old Karen Spragg, from Cardiff, both denied stalking the parents of missing Madeleine McCann by sending emails, leaving voicemails and turning up at their home between June 2022 and February this year.
The jury unanimously decided Wandelt was not guilty of stalking, but guilty of harassment and Spragg was found not guilty of stalking or harassment.
Wandelt and Spragg held hands in the dock before the verdicts were handed down, after the jury deliberated for more than seven hours.
Wandelt, who sat beside Spragg in the dock, gasped at the verdicts, while Spragg cried.
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A five-week trial at Leicester Crown Court heard Wandelt claimed to have memories, induced by hypnosis sessions, of being abducted and of living with the McCanns as a child, including feeding Madeleine’s younger brother Sean and playing ring-a-ring-a-roses.
Emotional testimonies given by the McCanns, who have been at the centre of conspiracy theories since their three-year-old disappeared, formed part of the key evidence against a woman claiming to be their missing daughter.
Kate and Gerry, who were once named as suspects in Madeleine’s disappearance by Portuguese investigators, both spoke from behind a curtain in the courtroom so they did not have to see Julia Wandelt.
Mrs McCann did, however, hear Wandelt’s voice when she cried out from the glass-fronted dock, ‘why are you doing this to me?’, partway through her evidence.
The Polish national, from Lubin, Poland, claimed to be missing British toddler Madeleine, all while harassing Mrs McCann and her husband, Gerry.
When asked in court if she understood that her advances towards the family were unwanted, Wandelt previously said no.
She added: ‘At the end of the day, this is a person looking for their child, so I didn’t assume this contact was not wanted.’
During the lengthy trial, she told Leicester Crown Court at one point that she was ’50/50′ on whether or not she was actually Madeleine.
She was initially arrested in early 2025 after flying to the UK. She previously travelled to the annual vigil held in Madeleine’s hometown, which marks the anniversary of the British tot’s disappearance.
Upon her initial arrest, the charges stated the alleged context ‘had a substantial adverse effect’ on the family’s day-to-day activities when you knew or ought to have known that your course of conduct would cause alarm or distress.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann, aged three, in Portugal in 2007 is one of the most widely reported missing child cases in history and remains unsolved.
Wandel took a DNA test in 2023, which concluded she is 100% Polish – and therefore cannot be Madeleine.
Despite this, she still claimed to have childhood memories of the McCanns ‘hugging’ her, and claimed to remember being abducted and taken to Poland.
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