{"id":67226,"date":"2025-10-08T13:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T13:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/67226\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T13:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T13:48:07","slug":"kate-mccann-tells-court-of-distress-over-alleged-stalkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/67226\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate McCann tells court of distress over alleged stalkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mother of missing toddler Madeleine McCann was left distressed after being confronted on her driveway by two women accused of stalking her, including a Polish national who has falsely claimed to be Madeleine, a court heard.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence against Karen Spragg, 61, and 24-year-old Julia Wandelt, who both deny stalking, Kate McCann said she first became aware of communications from the younger defendant around three years ago.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege Ms Wandelt, from Lubin in south-west Poland, peddled the myth that she herself was Madeleine – who went missing in Portugal in 2007 – while stalking the missing girl’s parents by sending emails, making phone calls and turning up at their address.<\/p>\n

Ms Wandelt and Ms Spragg, of Caerau Court Road in Caerau, Cardiff, in Wales, deny a count of stalking causing serious alarm and distress to Ms McCann and her husband Gerry between June 2022 and February this year.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence from behind a curtain screening her from the dock at Leicester Crown Court, Ms McCann was asked by the Crown’s barrister Michael Duck KC about a visit the defendants made to her home address in Leicestershire on 7 December last year.<\/p>\n

\"Kate
\nKate and Gerry McCann pictured in 2017<\/p>\n

Ms McCann, who said she had been made aware by police of communications sent by Ms Wandelt as early as June 2022, told the court: “I pulled up on the drive… it was really dark, it was the weekend, we had the gales.<\/p>\n

“I was opening the boot to get something out and I heard someone say ‘Kate’.<\/p>\n

“I knew it was someone behind me, but I didn’t know who it was.<\/p>\n

“She called me mum I think, she was asking for a DNA test, ‘why won’t you do a DNA test?’ and pleading with me.”<\/p>\n

Asked about the manner of Ms Spragg, who had attended the address with Ms Wandelt, rs McCann said: “I would say she was slightly more aggressive.<\/p>\n

“She was a bit more kind of… ‘don’t you want to find your daughter?’.”<\/p>\n

\"Karen
\nKaren Spragg pictured as she arrived at Leicester Crown Court yesterday<\/p>\n

Asked by Mr Duck if she wanted the women there, Ms McCann said she did not.<\/p>\n

Mr Duck said: “Did you make that plain?”<\/p>\n

“I did,” Ms McCann replied. “I told them to leave. I told them I was distressed.”<\/p>\n

Asked how the incident had made her feel, Ms McCann added: “I felt quite distressed to be honest.<\/p>\n

“I think I had been on edge anyway because of the recent communications from her.”<\/p>\n

She said she phoned her husband Gerry when she managed to get inside her home and lock the door and told him what had happened.<\/p>\n

After almost 90 minutes in the witness box, Ms McCann was given a break by the trial judge, prompting Ms Wandelt to begin to sob loudly in the dock and shout “why are you doing this to me?”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of missing toddler Madeleine McCann was left distressed after being confronted on her driveway by two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-67226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}