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A suspected stalker who insisted to be Madeleine McCann was excluded after a covert DNA test established beyond doubt she was not the missing girl, police have revealed in court.

Targeted Behavior Against McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, faces charges for a pattern of threatening behavior against the parents of Madeleine, who disappeared from a holiday destination in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three.

The woman from Poland flooded Kate and Gerry McCann and their grown-up kids, Sean and Amelie, with hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters over a period spanning 2022 to this year, and visited their home demanding a DNA test, jurors learned during proceedings.

Police Testimony

Providing testimony on Tuesday, the senior investigating officer on Operation Grange, stated he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “with the aim she may stop her conduct towards the McCann family”.

The senior officer said 13 people had earlier asserted to be the missing girl but that: “We would not take DNA unless we believed that person was Madeleine because I did not want setting a precedent.

“If it got out in the media I had taken DNA from a person probably not to be Madeleine, I was concerned I would have had numerous individuals coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I truly possess major concerns about approaching the family to say I plan to take DNA from an individual – that could have given them false hope. It could have been highly distressing and challenging for the family.”

DNA Comparison

He said authorities had previously assessed Wandelt not to be Madeleine due to dissimilar appearance and that she was older by two years than the missing girl. But, he said, after discovering Leicester police planned to arrest Wandelt on harassment allegations, he “decided that the DNA would be taken during detention”.

He declared: “A comparison took place. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt cannot be Madeleine McCann.”

Jury Hearings

Proceedings revealed that in April this year, Cranwell visited Wandelt in custody and told her that her DNA had been compared to Madeleine’s and that the samples did not match. Jurors were told he told Wandelt during the visit: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

The court heard that while they spoke, Wandelt said: “Do you truly desire to find Madeleine?”, and the officer told the jury he responded: “Yes.”

He said even with the results, he believed Wandelt “might claim we have interfered with the sample”, remarking: “It was possible she would not believe she isn't Madeleine notwithstanding scientific proof.”

Psychological Toll

In prior court sessions, jurors learned how the family were left terrified and distressed by their “disturbing” and “deeply disturbing” interactions with Wandelt and her alleged accomplice Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as the pair attempted to push for a DNA test.

The court learned how the defendants made ever more strange plans” to obtain Kate McCann’s DNA, which included going through the McCanns’ bins and stealing utensils from restaurants that the McCanns dined at.

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