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A suspected stalker who claimed to be the abducted child was eliminated after a covert DNA test definitively confirmed she was not the long-lost child, police have revealed in court.

Harassment Campaign Towards McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, faces charges for a stalking campaign against the family of Madeleine, who disappeared from a holiday destination in Portugal in 2007 when she was three.

The woman from Poland bombarded Kate and Gerry McCann and their grown-up kids, Sean and Amelie, with hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters from 2022 until recently, and turned up at their home requesting a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Police Testimony

Providing testimony on Tuesday, the senior investigating officer on Operation Grange, said he had acted outside normal guidelines to test Wandelt “in the hope she may stop her actions towards the McCann family”.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cramwell said thirteen individuals had in the past insisted to be the abducted child but that: “We would not take DNA without strong belief that person was Madeleine because I wished to avoid setting a precedent.

“If it became known in the media I had taken DNA from someone quite likely not to be Madeleine, I was anxious I would have had numerous individuals coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I genuinely have major concerns about reaching out to the family to say I plan to take DNA from an individual – that could have built up their expectations. It could have been very traumatic and hard for the family.”

DNA Comparison

He said the police had already judged Wandelt not to be Madeleine because of a lack of resemblance and that she was older by two years than the child. But, he said, after discovering Leicester police were going to take into custody Wandelt on stalking charges, he “made the decision that the DNA would be taken during detention”.

He stated: “Testing was conducted. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt cannot be Madeleine McCann.”

Court Proceedings

Proceedings revealed that in April this year, the officer visited Wandelt under arrest and told her that her DNA had been tested alongside Madeleine’s and that the profiles did not match. The court learned he told Wandelt during the visit: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

Testimony indicated that while they spoke, Wandelt said: “Do you truly desire to find Madeleine?”, and the officer told the jury he replied: “Yes.”

He said even with the results, he believed Wandelt “would suggest we have interfered with the sample”, remarking: “There existed a chance she would not believe she is not Madeleine notwithstanding scientific proof.”

Emotional Distress

During previous hearings, the court heard how the family were left terrified and traumatized by their “disturbing” and “extremely troubling” interactions with Wandelt and the other accused Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as the two women attempted to demand a DNA test.

The jury were told how the pair made progressively odd plans” to acquire Kate McCann’s DNA, which included going through the McCanns’ bins and taking forks from restaurants that the family visited.

Wandelt and Spragg both deny one count of stalking. The case remains active.