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A Polish woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann is facing deportation after being found guilty of harassing the missing girl’s family.
Julia Wandelt, 24, from Lubin in south-west Poland, waged an extensive campaign, including making calls, leaving messages and turning up at the home of the family of Madeleine, who disappeared in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz in 2007, Leicester crown court heard.
Wandelt put her hands to her face when jurors returned a guilty verdict for the harassment of Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.
After a five-week trial, the jury decided Wandelt was not guilty of stalking. Her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, from Cardiff, was found not guilty of stalking or harassment.
Mrs Justice Cutts said Wandelt had already served more than the six-month sentence available for harassment, after being held on remand since February.
The court was told a deportation order had been served against Wandelt and that it was a matter for the secretary of state whether she remained in custody.
Wandelt has also been made the subject of a restraining order against Kate and Gerry McCann because she poses a “significant risk of the harassment of the McCanns in future”, her trial judge said.
The trial heard Wandelt claimed to have memories, induced by hypnosis sessions, of being abducted and of living with the McCanns as a child. She said this included feeding Madeleine’s younger brother, Sean, and playing ring-a-ring-a-roses.
Jurors heard that Wandelt tried to persuade “anybody prepared to listen” that she was Madeleine, and that she had been kidnapped from Portugal and abused with other girls in Poland.
Wandelt called and messaged Madeleine’s mother more than 60 times in one day in April last year, claiming to have a memory of the mother stroking her head and saying she would find her before the abduction.
The McCanns were confronted by Wandelt on their driveway last December, when she begged for a DNA test.
Madeleine’s parents gave evidence during the trial, from behind a curtain shielding them from Wandelt. Gerry McCann said he and his wife still cling to hope that Madeleine is alive.
He said Wandelt’s actions were hampering the ongoing inquiry into his daughter’s disappearance.
Kate McCann said she had been distressed by Wandelt’s behaviour, particularly a letter sent by the defendant addressing her as “mum”.
Wandelt told jurors she believed Madeleine’s father was involved in her disappearance and that her mother knew of the abduction, but they “had no other choice”.
She also suggested the continuing police investigation into the girl’s disappearance, called Operation Grange, which has received more than £13m in funding, involves money laundering.
A forensic expert Rosalyn Hammond told jurors “Julia Wandelt cannot be Madeleine McCann” because their DNA profiles do not match.
Asked in court whether she still thought she was Madeleine, Wandelt said she was “50/50” and added that she would like to see the full paperwork proving they are different people.
The next day in the witness box, Wandelt said: “I do believe I’m her. I do remember them but I’m exhausted, I’m completely exhausted with all of this.”
