Why this woman believed she was Madeleine McCann

For years, Julia Wandelt bombarded Madeleine McCann’s parents and siblings with phone calls and messages on WhatsApp and Instagram.

She even turned up on the family’s doorstep, posting a letter through their door beginning “Dear Mum”.

Wandelt believed she could be Kate and Gerry McCann’s missing daughter and spent more than two years trying to gather evidence to reinforce this idea.

DNA tests have proved she is not Madeleine, the three-year-old who disappeared while on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.

Wandelt has now been found guilty of harassing the McCann family but not guilty of stalking. Her co-accused Karen Spragg – who the prosecution called a conspiracy theorist – was cleared.

Wandelt’s actions, the trial at Leicester Crown Court heard, were cruel and unforgiving.

Wandelt, the court heard, began “telling anyone who would listen” she was Madeleine McCann in June 2022.

She claimed she had been abducted and transported to Poland. She amassed a number of supporters on social media, would go on to contact 23 different organisations in the UK, Poland, and Portugal, including police and Interpol, missing persons charities and the Find Madeleine website.

Wandelt then began to investigate ways of contacting the McCann family, the trial heard.

She rang the switchboard of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust claiming to be Madeleine and asked to be put through to Glenfield Hospital, where Mr and Mrs McCann worked.

In a call lasting several minutes, she ended up speaking to the trust’s communications manager – telling her she thought she was Madeleine.

The contents of the call were passed on to Operation Grange.

In January 2023, Wandelt got in touch with a Polish charity that helps with historical missing persons cases.

She first said she was a missing German girl, called Inga Gehricke, then Acacia Bishop – a baby from Utah in the US – and finally that she was Madeleine.

By now, media attention began to garner around Wandelt’s claims on social media. The court heard Fia Johansson, an American woman, contacted Wandelt in February 2023 after she went public with her claims.

Jurors heard the pair had a WhatsApp phone call before they both flew out to Los Angeles.

Wandelt said Miss Johansson organised interviews for her and she ended up appearing on the Dr Phil show, hosted by Phil McGraw – one of the top chat show hosts in the US – in March 2023. She was unpaid from this appearance.

Wandelt later contacted Mr McCann after finding his work email in June 2023. One email read: “I could be your daughter, it’s possible I’m her.”

Wandelt then turned her attention to Madeleine’s sister Amelie, who was at university, messaging her dozens of times on Instagram.

She told Amelie she had memories of them playing in the McCanns’ garden and that she was her “only hope”.

“Please don’t block me, I never lied about anything,” she said in another message.

The contact with Madeleine’s sister ended at the start of January 2024, when Wandelt again began targeting Madeleine’s mother.

Mr Duck KC, for the prosecution, said Wandelt obtained Mrs McCann’s phone number in April 2024 from Portuguese police files published online.

The court heard she contacted Mrs McCann on 60 occasions but did not receive a response. In one message, Wandelt asked her to take a DNA test.

In a voicemail, Wandelt said: “I don’t want any money, I just want to talk to you… don’t give up on your daughter… call me, please.”

The prosecution said Wandelt had been “rebuffed on many hundreds of occasions”.

Mrs McCann reported Wandelt to officers working within the Operation Grange investigation. But she did not stop.

In May 2024, Wandelt decided to travel from Poland to the village of Rothley, in Leicestershire, to attend a vigil in an attempt to meet the McCann family. Until this point, her attempts to contact the family had been via phone or social media.

The court heard the McCanns were not present for the vigil, but Wandelt approached the village priest and Mrs McCann’s aunt and handed a letter to them.

But before returning to Poland, Wandelt visited Charing Cross police station in London and told officers she was Madeleine.

A DNA sample was taken as a precaution, but it was destroyed after an officer made contact with Operation Grange and discovered that there was no prospect of Wandelt being who she claimed to be.

An officer from the investigation was instead sent to speak to her and contacted Wandelt the following month, telling her she risked being arrested. She told the officer she would not give up.

The court heard Mrs Spragg reached out to Wandelt after she saw her appear on a YouTube broadcast in September 2024.

The prosecution said Mrs Spragg was a “forthright supporter of the conspiracy theory” that Madeleine’s parents were responsible for her disappearance despite “unequivocal evidence to the contrary”.

Messages between the pair in November 2024 show Wandelt asking about getting DNA from the McCanns. Mrs Spragg replies to say the pair should “go through their bins”.

It was from this contact that Wandelt arranged to meet Mrs Spragg in person.

Wandelt flew into East Midlands Airport and the pair travelled to Birstall, where they checked into a hotel.

They then travelled to Rothley where they waited in Mrs Spragg’s car with the lights out.

The trial heard Mrs McCann was confronted by Wandelt with a demand for a DNA test. She told the pair “they were causing distress and should leave the property”.

As Mrs McCann tried to get into her home, Wandelt “attempted to stop her closing the door”.

A letter from Wandelt, beginning “Dear Mum”, was posted through the McCanns’ front door the next day.

Following a failed attempt to contact Mrs McCann again via WhatsApp, the prosecution said the defendants continued to make plans for Wandelt to return to the UK.

The two women were finally arrested at Bristol Airport on 19 February 2025.

Wandelt was detained after getting off a flight, while Mrs Spragg had been waiting in a car park nearby and was arrested after sending anxious messages inquiring about the whereabouts of her co-accused.

Wandelt denied any intention to harm the McCanns.

Results of the DNA test – taken by Wandelt after she was arrested at Bristol Airport in February – “conclusively proved” she is not Madeleine.

Jurors were told police contacted the defendant about the DNA test on 1 April. Wandelt said she felt this was “disrespectful” as it was April Fool’s Day, knowing how long she had been waiting.

Mr Duck KC told the jury Wandelt was “capable of being incredibly manipulative”. He said her actions towards the McCanns had been “cruel and unforgiving”.

Wandelt, 24, of Lubin, Poland, who has been remanded in custody since February, was sentenced to six months in prison.

Due to her time on remand, she will leave prison but was given a restraining order against the McCann family. Her phones will be forfeited and destroyed as part of her restraining order.

The court was also told Wandelt is likely to be deported following the conclusion of her trial.

Mrs Spragg was acquitted, though the judge Mrs Justice Cutts, also granted a restraining order against her, which bans her from contacting the McCanns for five years.