A Polish woman charged with stalking after she claimed to be the missing Madeleine McCann suddenly exclaimed ‘why are you doing this to me’ during a court session where Kate McCann gave testimony. 

An hysterical Julia Wandelt wept uncontrollably and was heard screaming after Mrs McCann concluded her evidence against her. 

Kate McCann, mother of the missing child who disappeared in Portugal’s Algarve in 2007, provided her testimony from behind a screen in the case against 24-year-old Wandelt and 61-year-old Karen Spragg today. 

Wandelt is alleged to have stalked 57-year-old Mrs. McCann for nearly three years, reportedly appearing at the McCanns’ residence, attending a vigil for Madeleine, and sending ‘distressing’ letters claiming to be her daughter. 

While Spragg has been charged with one count of stalking involving serious alarm or distress for her alleged involvement. 

Nonetheless, as Wandelt was led out of the courtroom in tears with her hand over her mouth, she shouted: ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Earlier in the proceedings, Mrs. McCann recounted how Wandelt’s attempts to make contact with her daughter Amelie, Madeleine’s younger sibling, were a breaking point for her. 

She explained that it was then she reached out to Operation Grange officers, the team handling the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, telling Leicester Crown Court: ‘That was the final straw for me, I just wanted to protect Amelie and Sean.’

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

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

An emotional 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 Madeleine to be calling me “mum” that was really distressing for me.’

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’. 

Mrs McCann told the court she had kept the same mobile phone number since before 2007, when Madeleine vanished. When asked why she said ‘I’m not very good at technology’ adding: ‘I didn’t think I should have to (change it).  

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 Ms 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?’

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

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.

Asking about Madeleine’s twin siblings Amelie and Sean, Mr Duck said: ‘What then is your hope and intention for them?’

Mrs McCann replied: ‘What they have had to deal with and still have to deal with is a lot. I want to keep that as minimal as possible. I don’t want any attention on them media or otherwise.’

After Mrs McCann finished giving her evidence, a weeping Wandelt screamed before taken away, crying hysterically with her hand over her mouth, shouting: ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

On Tuesday, jurors were told the two women parents 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.

To learn more about this case, search for The Trial of the ‘McCann Stalkers’, wherever you get your podcasts. 

For an ad-free experience, subscribe to The Crime Desk and access our entire collection of award-winning true crime podcasts without interruptions.