The parents of Madeleine McCann, the little British girl whose disappearance in 2007 in Portugal, which was never clarified, had international repercussions, told the court this Wednesday, October 8, of the anguish caused by the harassment of a young Polish woman who claimed to be their daughter.
The parents of the missing girl, Kate and Gerry McCann, testified one after the other before the court in Leicester, central England, protected behind a curtain that isolated them from the accused.
“Stress” and “anxiety”
Julia Wandelt, 24, has been on trial since Monday for harassment of the McCann family. This Polish woman, arrested in February 2025, is accused of having telephoned and written to Maddie’s parents on numerous occasions for more than two and a half years, and of having gone to their house claiming to be their missing daughter.
“The level of stress and anxiety that this caused me increased over time,” McCann said. Maddie’s mother, who has two other children, twins who are now 20, felt “really more relaxed” after Julia Wandelt’s arrest.
Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday accommodation in the Algarve in May 2007, while her parents were dining at a nearby restaurant. The investigation into his disappearance went through a series of twists and turns and had worldwide media coverage, but the case was never clarified.
Recently, the main suspect, a 48-year-old man, was released from prison in Germany, where he served a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of an American woman in Portugal, in the region where the British girl disappeared.
Due to lack of sufficient evidence, he could not be charged in the Maddie case.
“I’m not a liar”
More than 18 years after the girl disappeared, people continue to show up about “every six months” at the family home, claiming to have information, Kate McCann said. She also said that fewer than a dozen people had contacted her claiming to be Madeleine.
The acts of harassment attributed to Julia Wandelt occurred between June 2022 and February 2025, with peaks of intensity.
Thus, in April 2024, he called Maddie’s parents more than 60 times in a single day, according to the prosecution. “Give me a chance, I’m not a liar,” she pleaded in a message left on the family’s answering machine.
“I think it affected me so much that a small part of my brain was thinking ‘what if?'” Kate McCann told the court.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Madeleine’s mother later said, due to Julia Wandelt’s Polish nationality and lack of resemblance. “I can’t say what Madeleine looks like today, but if I saw a photo of her I would recognize her,” Kate McCann continued.
Then her husband, Gerry McCann, said he had always avoided social media to protect his family from “horrible things” written about his family. In the summer of 2022, she received an email saying, “Hello, I’m writing to you because I think I might be Madeleine McCann.”
“I was very sure of myself when I looked at the photo, it was not Madeleine,” the father said, before describing the “anxiety” caused by the defendant’s incessant phone calls.
Another woman on the bench
Julia Wandelt is on trial along with Karen Spragg, 61, also accused of harassment. The two women, who went to the McCann home together in December 2024, deny the allegations.
At the opening of the trial on Monday, the prosecution stressed that there was “irrefutable scientific evidence” – without giving details – showing that Julia Wandelt has no family ties to the McCanns. According to the British press, a DNA test carried out by a private investigator showed that Julia Wandelt was Polish, but the accused later disputed the results and published other test results, showing that she was half Polish and half British.
The McCann parents always refused to carry out a DNA test, considering that it was not their “responsibility” and that the investigators had assured them that the accused was not their daughter, Gerry McCann stressed.
Source: BFM TV
