Polish ‘stalker’ who claimed she was Madeleine McCann breaks down in court after telling how she remembered being ‘taken, abused and held with other girls’

A Polish woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann broke down in court as she told how she remembered being ‘taken, abused and held with other girls’.

Julia Wandelt spoke through tears as she described what she said were ‘genuine memories’.

She said that while she was ‘willing to accept what I am told now’ she was not going to ‘deny what I remember’.

Wandelt told jurors her memories included growing up in a house with large glass doors just like the ones at the McCanns’ house in Leicestershire adding: ‘So if I am not her that is OK but how can I remember something that turned out to be true?’

Wandelt, 24, took the stand to give evidence in her own defence at Leicester Crown Court on Monday. 

She is on trial accused of stalking Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, bombarding them with texts, calls and emails and turning up at their home to demand a DNA test.

She is in the dock alongside Karen Spragg, 61, of Cardiff, who is also accused of targeting the McCanns between June 2022 and February 2025.

After swearing on the bible, Wandelt in a white shirt and navy cardigan with long blonde hair, said her name was ‘Julia Wandelt according to documents’. She said she still questioned her identity.

Softly spoken with a Polish accent, she told the court she did not believe her parents in Poland were her real parents.

She also told how she was abused as a child by her step grandfather and later started self harming and tried to take her own life on more than one occasion. Wandelt said he was jailed for two and half years in 2012.

She said it was during therapy for the abuse that she started ‘questioning her identity’.

Wandelt said she did not believe she was her parents’ daughter as they both had dark hair and brown eyes.

She also said she did not have any childhood memories before the age of eight or nine and her parents refused to hand over her birth certificate.

Asked by her barrister Tom Price KC: ‘Do you still question your identity today?’

She replied: ‘Yes I do’.

She was later asked what first attracted her to the Madeleine McCann case. Mr Price said: ‘Were you attracted to it because of the possibility of making financial gain? She replied: ‘No’.

Mr Price said: ‘What was your motive?’ Wandelt replied: ‘I just wanted to find out who I am… I know people don’t believe this but it is true.

‘I won’t be able to heal from this trauma until I know what has happened to me.’

Mr Price went on: ‘Do you believe you documents are fake?

She said: ‘They were either fake or belonged to a child whose death was not registered.’

Wandelt told the court she discovered who Madeleine was when she was in hospital for ‘suicidal thoughts’ in the summer of 2022 when she spoke with her father, who told her the man who abused her had ‘been involved in kidnapping’.

She told jurors it was at that time she started considering whether she had been adopted or abducted and decided to ‘check out databases’ of missing people.

Wandelt claimed she did not have any names in mind but ‘just wanted to check’ for any matches.

‘Did you find anyone who matched you?’ Mr Price said.

She said: ‘There were not actually a lot of people my age or around my age, but that is how I found Madeleine.’

She told the court a sketch of a suspect in the Madeleine case looked ‘quite similar to the person who abused me’ and had the same surname, which she said was a ‘big factor’.

Wandelt added that she has a similar mark on her eye to Madeleine, so she contacted Operation Grange ‘genuinely’ believing she could be the missing girl.

She said she called a hospital in Leicester where the McCanns worked saying she believed she was Madeleine after ‘police wouldn’t help me’.

She said: ‘I admit I contacted the hospital, but the reason was because the police wouldn’t help me.’

Wandelt told jurors she ‘contacted every single person’ before she went to the McCanns.

The court heard Wandelt approached Operation Grange, Interpol and missing persons charities while she thought she could be Madeleine.

She told the court: ‘I did not want to contact Kate and Gerry and the McCann family until I contacted every single person I can.

‘I did everything before.’

‘I wanted to contact every institution I had in my mind before getting in touch with the parents of Madeleine directly… I didn’t want to give them any false hope or give them any distress.’

Asked about why she started contacting the McCanns directly she said: ‘I wanted to get DNA test, at that time I didn’t know, it still don’t know now why they didn’t want to do this DNA test…’

Mr Price asked her if she intended them any ‘ill will’ to which she replied: ‘No, I always defended them, I still do now… I would never harm them, I actually have sympathy for them even after I have been imprisoned for eight months… they are looking for their child I am looking for my parents.’

Wandelt became emotional as she was questioned by her barrister about her contact with Madeleine’s younger sister Amelie McCann.

She said: ‘I have spent three years trying to find out who I am I still don’t know who I am.

‘I was taken and I was abused and held with other girls… I just don’t understand why no one wants to help me.’

She told jurors she believes the police are ‘not interested’ in finding Madeleine and her parents were ‘misled’ by officers.

Asked why she contacted Mr McCann, in June 2023, she said: ‘Because I think they were misled because if the police treated their daughter’s case the way they treated me I’m not surprised they didn’t find their daughter, and I think they should know because my case is just an example of how police [are] still abusing cases.

‘It is 18 years since Madeleine disappeared… the police are not interested in finding Kate and Gerry’s daughter, that is my opinion.’

Earlier, the court heard Wandelt was being advised by ‘publicist’ who told her what to post on social media, a court heard. 

She was in contact with ‘journalist’ Surjit Singh Clair who told her ‘exactly how and when’ to post on Instagram, jurors were told. 

He advised her about getting a DNA test, which he later said was ‘conclusive’ adding ‘nine out of 10 I would say it is her’. 

Wandelt posted much of her ‘evidence’ that she was Madeleine online.  

On Monday, jurors were told she was advised by Mr Singh Clair, who told her what to post.   

Madeleine McCann went missing in Portugal in 2007

Karen Spragg, 61, of Cardiff, also denies stalking Kate and Gerry McCann

Mr Price said Mr Singh presented himself as a ‘competent, respected publisher’.

He said Wandelt had a ‘genuine and honestly held belief she is Madeleine McCann’ and Mr Singh had made contact with her in ‘his capacity as a journalist and he was advising her what she should do’. 

In messages read to the court Mr Singh is said to have told her if the DNA matches they could then ‘plan our next step’.  

He is said to have told Wandelt she had a ‘credible case’ because of a mark in her eye and a scar adding ‘I am suspicious why they won’t give you a DNA test’.  

Mr Singh claimed to have broken dozens of big stories and ‘taken on the biggest newspapers in the land’, jurors were told. 

He and Wandelt discussed her taking a DNA test in an alleged attempt to prove she was Madeleine McCann. 

In a message he is said to have told Wandelt: ‘Once we do that and whether it [their aims] matches or not, then we’ll plan our next step.’

He went on: ‘If your DNA doesn’t match to them… then you can’t be her [Madeleine]. to which Wandelt replied: ‘Yeah I know.’

Later he told her not to post anything for a while adding: ‘You’re just giving the game away, you’re like a chess player who’s telling everybody what your next move is going to be.’

The court heard Wandelt was also in touch with an American woman called Fia Johansson who ‘courted publicity on behalf of Ms Wandelt, took her to America and put her on various chat shows in America’. 

Mr Price said she also ‘took her passport in America and left her abandoned in America’

Later the court was told Spragg was arrested for a second time at her home at 4am in March, having initially been arrested at Bristol airport with Wandelt in February. 

Simon Russell Flint, for Spragg, asked PC Tom Szyszlak, from Leicestershire police, how he knew they would both be at Bristol airport. 

He said: ‘How did you know to send an officer to Bristol airport?

PC Szyszlak said: ‘Once Ms Wandelt was declared a suspect I arranged for a marker to be put on the PNC [Police National Computer] when she was at the airport it triggered an alert…that alert came through to myself, I then contacted Bristol airport

‘At that point I suspected Mrs Spragg might have been there to pick her up.’

Mr Russell Flint said: ‘So it was a suspicion?’ to which the officer replied ‘yes.’

Asked why he didn’t arrest her earlier he replied: ‘There were considerations that she might have alerted Julia Wandelt.’

Referring to the second arrest, Mr Russell Flint said: ‘Why did you need to arrest her again first of all?

PC Szyszlak said: ‘She was first arrested for aiding and abetting not stalking directly… after reviewing messages on her phone… she was arrested on suspicion of stalking.’

Mr Russell Flint said: ‘Why did you not make arrangements with her legal representatives to make appointment. Why if you wanted to question her further not make an appointment to attend?

Mr Szyszlak said: ‘Sorry just bear with me. I’m struggling to recall but I do remember the Senior investigating officer making the decision.

Mr Russell Fling went on: ‘So, Mrs Spragg let’s wake her up and drag her out of bed…was it necessary to arrest her at 410 in the morning?’

The court was told Wandelt has no previous convictions. Ms Spragg has a caution from January 2006 when she ‘slapped a neighbour’s wife to the rear of the head’. 

Jurors have been told previously a DNA comparison carried out by police proved ‘conclusively’ Wandelt is not Madeleine. 

The trial, now in its fourth week, continues.