A Polish woman, who has been accused of stalking Kate McCann for several years while claiming to be her missing daughter, Madeleine, reportedly wrote a letter stating: ‘You know who I am, I am your daughter.’

Julia Wandelt is on trial alongside Karen Spragg, 61, for allegedly stalking the McCanns for nearly three years. She is accused of attending a vigil for the missing girl and attempting to contact Madeleine’s younger siblings.

During the trial at Leicester Crown Court, it was revealed that 24-year-old Wandelt sent a ‘distressing’ letter to Mrs. McCann, who is 57, a day after visiting her home in Leicestershire with Spragg.

In the letter, Wandelt allegedly wrote: ‘Dear Mum (Kate), I’m so sorry for causing you so much distress, but when I saw you yesterday, my emotions were overwhelming. I felt a strong connection to you. I don’t like seeing you upset.’

‘All I want is to find out the truth. I have memories and I have gathered a lot of evidence supporting my case.’

She continued: ‘I believe that deep inside your heart, you know and believe who I am, and I am your daughter,’ closing the letter with a kiss.

Mrs. McCann and her husband, Gerry, appeared emotional as they took the witness stand today, firmly denying Wandelt’s claim of being their daughter.

At the end of Mrs McCann’s evidence, a hysterical Wandelt wept uncontrollably and  screamed ‘why are you doing this to me’ as she was led away from the dock.

This afternoon, a tearful Mr McCann broke down, insisting his family still had a ‘glimmer of hope’ they would one day be reunited with his daughter, who has not been seen for more than 18 years. 

But speaking of Wandelt, he said: ‘We know she is not our daughter.’

Taking to the witness stand from behind a curtain, Mr McCann described the toll on his family, adding: ‘It has many effects. We don’t know what happened to Madeleine. There is no evidence she is dead.

‘We hope, and we know it is only a glimmer, that Madeleine is alive.

‘So when people claim to be your daughter it inevitably pulls your heartstrings.’

He added her claims also had a ‘wider effect’, which he described as ‘damaging the search’ for Madeleine.

Madeleine vanished from the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, aged three. Despite extensive search efforts, her location remains unknown. The mystery has prompted widespread media coverage and public curiosity. 

Describing the impact on his twins Amelie and Sean – Madeleine’s younger siblings – Mr McCann said: ‘We have done our best to try to protect them.’ At which point he broke down and took a second to compose himself before resuming.

He went on: ‘Given what has happened to Madeleine we try to keep them out of the media as much as possible. We know they want to be identified as Amelie McCann and Sean McCann and not missing Madeleine McCann’s sister.’

Prosecutor Michael Duck KC told him: ‘Take whatever time you like’ as the father struggled to talk though his tears.

‘As a parent you want to try to protect your children we know social media can be really damaging all the horrible things that have been written about us and nasty stuff online. We want to try to protect them from that.’

Earlier Mr McCann’s emotional wife, Kate, told the court all she wanted was for her beloved daughter to be back and calling her ‘mum’ again. 

However, in dramatic scenes after Mrs McCann finished giving evidence, a weeping Wandelt was escorted out of the dock, yelling: ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Speaking out today, Mr McCann told jurors he and his wife had been asked by officers from Operation Grange – the police mission investigating Madeleine’s disappearance – to look at a picture of Wandelt after she started claiming publicly to be their missing daughter.

‘We both did that independently. I was very confident just looking at the picture that it was not Madeleine,’ he told the court.

He added he had been left ‘frustrated and angry’ by the constant calls to his wife’s phone, which she was ‘obviously very distressed’ by.

Asked by prosecutor Mr Duck about one occasion, possibly in the summer of last year, where he took hold of the phone in his kitchen and spoke to the caller, Mr McCann said: ‘Kate was upset. I was getting frustrated and angry that these calls were coming.

‘The phone went and I picked it up and answered it. I said “you’re not Madeleine, please stop calling” and then hung up very, very quickly.

‘I made it very clear these were unwanted calls. To be honest, it was a bit of a blur.’

During her evidence, Mrs McCann was asked about a letter posted through her door the day after Wandelt and Spragg turned up at her home, addressed ‘Dear Mum’ and signed ‘Madeleine’.

Prosecutor Mr Duck said: ‘As far as the receipt of that letter is concerned, what was the impact on you?’

A visibly distraught Mrs McCann replied: ‘I think that is an example of a thing that was really getting to me it is obviously that is the thing I want most, and for her to be calling me “mum” – that was really distressing for me.’

Wandelt is accused of stalking while Spragg has been charged with one count of stalking involving serious alarm or distress for her alleged involvement. Both deny the charges. 

During the hearing, Mrs McCann described how Wandelt’s attempt to contact her daughter Amelie, one of Madeleine’s younger siblings, had been the ‘final straw’. 

She said it was at this point she contacted officers from Operation Grange, telling jurors: ‘That was the final straw for me, I just wanted to protect Amelie and Sean.’ 

Earlier in the hearing, the judge said it was ‘entirely usual’ for some witnesses to give evidence from behind a screen and did ‘not in anyway reflect on the two defendants’. 

Mr Duck asked about pictures of Wandelt: ‘Having had the opportunity to look at, along with Gerry, did you conclude that she was plainly not Madeleine?’   

Mrs McCann, who was softly spoken, replied: ‘Yes. I was clear it was not Madeleine.’

Mr Duck asked her if she responded to any of the messages from Wandelt. Mrs McCann replied: ‘No, I did not want to engage’. 

Mrs McCann was at this point asked to speak up so the jury could hear her. 

The court was then played a rambling voicemail from Wandelt left on Mrs McCann’s phone in which she said: ‘Don’t give up on your daughter. Please don’t reject me.’

Mr Duck KC asked Mrs McCann about a voicemail message left on her phone by Wandelt which asked her and husband Gerry for a DNA test to be carried out.

He said: ‘Was that something you had a willingness or desire to do?’

Mrs McCann replied: ‘If I’m honest, because of the persistence of Julia’s behaviour, it did start to get to me.

‘I almost wanted a DNA test to put it to bed… from the photographs.. I knew it wasn’t her.’

During Mrs McCann’s evidence, the Crown’s barrister told jurors that Wandelt had attended a vigil on May 3, 2024, held in Madeleine’s Leicestershire home village.

After Mrs McCann confirmed she and her husband Gerry were not present at the event, Mr Duck asked: ‘You weren’t present, but did you become aware that Julia Wandelt had come to that vigil?’

‘Yes’ Mrs McCann answered as the court heard that Wandelt claimed to have handed a letter to Madeleine’s great-aunt during the gathering.

Asked how she felt about hearing Wandelt had attended, Mrs McCann told the jury: ‘If I am honest I was relieved we weren’t there.

‘It (the annual vigil) is quite a hard but positive experience. It would have taken away from the actual reason we were there.’

Later, the mother was questioned about the manner of Spragg, who had attended the McCann home address with Wandelt.

‘I would say she was slightly more aggressive,’ Mrs McCann told jurors. ‘She was a bit more kind of… “don’t you want to find your daughter?”.’

Mr Duck KC asked if she wanted the women there, to which Madeleine’s mother replied no.

The prosecutor added: ‘Did you make that plain?’

‘I did,’ Mrs McCann insisted. ‘I told them to leave. I told them I was distressed.’

She said she phoned her husband when she managed to get inside her home and lock the door and told him what had happened.

However, Mrs McCann told the jury during Wandelt and Spragg’s December 7 visit last year, they ‘did not give any indication’ they would hurt her.

She added she did not know whether Wandelt had been crying when she turned up at the McCanns’ family home, but said the Polish national had been ‘pleading’ and ‘asking about DNA tests again’.

Tom Price KC, defending Wandelt, suggested the women left ‘a short time after’ Mr McCann got home.

Mrs McCann said: ‘Not immediately, but yes. Certainly not half an hour or anything.’

Asked if they made her think that would hurt her, Mrs McCann said: ‘No they did not give me any indication of that.’ 

Under cross examination, Mrs McCann said she had a ‘tiny niggle’ that she should take a DNA test because the contact from Wandelt was ‘so incessant’.

She said: ‘I think it was just because it was getting to me so much there was a little bit of my brain saying what if?

‘I had seen a photo of her, she was Polish and none of it made any sense. I could not say what Madeleine looks like but if I saw a photo I would recognise her.’

Speaking to the court, about the toll the alleged stalking had taken on her, the 57-year-old said her level of ‘stress and anxiety’ had increased but she felt ‘more relaxed’ after being told Wandelt had been arrested at Bristol Airport on February 19.

‘I feel like it has escalated, the level of stress and anxiety it’s caused me has increased over that time,’ she told the court.

‘I would say it’s only since February 19 you notice a change, you actually feel more relaxed.’

When asked about Madeleine’s younger twin siblings, Mrs McCann said: ‘I don’t want any media attention on them. I think what they had to deal with, and still have to deal with, is a lot.’

On Tuesday, jurors were told the two women allegedly discussed going through their bins to find DNA traces.

Wandelt and Spragg are also said to have considered following Mr and Mrs McCann to a restaurant to steal any cutlery they used to get DNA that would ‘prove’ Wandelt was really Madeleine.

Michael Duck KC, prosecuting, said the ends to which the two women were prepared to go were ‘remarkable’.

He told Leicester Crown Court they had a discussion about taking the McCanns’ ‘garbage’ back to the hotel where they were staying, ‘as long as it doesn’t stink’. In one message Spragg said: ‘We can go through the bins lol’.

In another, she told Wandelt: ‘Shame we cant [sic] follow them to a bar or restaurant and get a knife or fork.’

Wandelt insists she is Madeleine, who was abducted aged three on May 3, 2007, from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Mr Duck had previously told jurors scientific evidence proved Wandelt, 24, could not be Madeleine, who would now be 22.

The court heard that Wandelt messaged Spragg: ‘We should get their DNA, it’s the only way to prove it.’

Spragg, 61, of Cardiff, and Wandelt, from Poland, are accused of stalking the McCanns, causing ‘serious alarm or distress’, between June 1, 2022, and February 21, 2025, which they deny.

Jurors were told yesterday how Mrs McCann, 57, was ‘visibly upset’ after being confronted at home by Wandelt.

In a recording of the encounter on December 7 last year, an emotional Mrs McCann pleads with her and Spragg – who supports Wandelt’s claim to be Madeleine – to leave her driveway, telling them: ‘You are causing us a lot of distress. Stop it.’

When Mr McCann, 57, arrived moments later, they shouted at him and tried to force a letter into his hand. In the recording he tells Wandelt: ‘You need help. You are not Madeleine.’

Wandelt later posted a letter through the door of the couple’s home in Rothley, Leicestershire, in which she called Mrs McCann ‘mummy’. It was signed ‘Madeleine’, jurors were told.

Mr Duck said Spragg was ‘front and centre of the pursuit of the McCanns. Wandelt had travelled from Poland to go to the McCanns’ house, arriving at East Midlands airport where she was greeted by Spragg in her car.

The court heard Spragg messaged a friend that read: ‘We are sat outside the McCanns home waiting for them… never thought I would be stalking the McCanns.’

The next day, a letter was put through the McCanns’ door. It began, ‘Dear Mum’, and went on: ‘Inside your heart you believe… who I am and I am your daughter.’ It ended, in what Mr Duck said was a ‘final cruel signature’ with ‘lots of love, Madeleine’.

Jurors heard that Wandelt said she remembered ‘her’ abduction, saying she was injected and was taken by a man with tanned skin. She claims the McCanns were involved in abducting Madeleine.

Wandelt was arrested in February when she arrived at Bristol airport on a flight paid for by Spragg, having made plans to go to the McCanns’ place of work. Spragg was arrested outside the airport shortly afterwards.

Wandelt and Spragg both deny a count of stalking causing serious alarm and distress to Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.

Madeleine’s disappearance from Portugal’s Algarve in 2007 remains unsolved.

The trial continues.

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