You are not Madeleine

McCANNS TRIAL ORDEAL AS THEY RELIVE TORMENT

- BY MARTIN FRICKER

GERRY McCann demanded alleged stalker Julia Wandelt stop phoning his wife Kate claiming to be their missing daughter Madeleine as the relentless calls left the couple distraught, a court heard yesterday.

He broke down in the witness box while recalling how the repeated attempts to contact Kate, a former GP, became unbearable.

Kate also told how Wandelt called her “mum’, which left her distresse«

Gerry, 57, told jurors: “There were multiple times when I was present where Kate's phone was going off continuously, one after another.

‘She was obviously very distressed, irritated, irritable, struggling to concentrate.

“They were often from a no-caller ID, just ring and ring and ring, messages from WhatsApp saying she was Madeleine.

It was pretty horrible. On one occasion Kate was upset, I was getting frustrated and angry. I remember being in the kitchen and the phone went. I took the phone and said something like, ‘Youre not Madeleine, please stop callin’. I made it very clear these were unwanted calls.”

Wandelt, 24, from Poland, is accused of stalking with Karen Spragg, 61, of Cardiff.

Kate, 57, gave evidence from behind a curtain at their trial. She said the incessant messages culminated with Wandelt turning up at her house with Spragg last December.

Jurors were told she had just returned to the family home in Rothley, Leics, after watching son Sean in a swimming competition to find the pair on her doorstep.

Kate said: “I was opening the boot to get something out and I heard someone say ‘Kate’. I knew it was someone behind me but didn't know who it was.I gota fright. [had a momentary kind of ‘who is it?’ because there were two women, and finally I realised it was Julia.

“I had seen a photo of her in the past and she was quite vivid in my mind because of all the communications.