Woman who claimed to be missing girl Madeleine McCann guilty of harassment

A Polish woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann is facing deportation after being found guilty of harassing the missing girl’s family.

- Matthew Weaver Robyn Vinter

Julia Wandelt, 24, from Lubin in Poland, waged a campaign including making calls, leaving messages and turning up at the home of the family of Madeleine, who disappeared in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007, Leicester crown court heard.

Wandelt put her hands to her face when jurors returned a guilty verdict for the harassment of Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.

After a five-week trial, the jury decided Wandelt was not guilty of stalking. Her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, from Cardiff, was found not guilty of stalking or harassment.

Mrs Justice Cutts sentenced Wandelt to six months in prison, which she has already served. The court was told a deportation order had been served against Wandelt and that it was a matter for the secretary of state whether she remained in custody.

The judge also imposed a restraining order against Wandelt because she posed a “significant risk of the harassment of the McCanns in future”. She said she accepted evidence that Wandelt had been abused as a child, but this did not justify the way she had behaved.

The trial heard Wandelt had claimed to have memories, induced by hypnosis sessions, of being abducted and of living with the McCanns as a child. She said this included feeding Madeleine’s brother, Sean, and playing ring-a-ring-a-roses.

Jurors heard that Wandelt had tried to persuade “anybody prepared to listen” that she was Madeleine, and that she had been kidnapped from Portugal and abused with other girls in Poland.