A woman claiming to be Madeleine McCann broke down in the dock as a Leicester jury was told she was a conspiracy theorist who could not be the missing child.<\/p>\n
Julia Wandelt, 24, is accused of stalking Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of Madeleine who was three when she disappeared on holiday in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.<\/p>\n
At the opening of her trial, she was described by the prosecution as an emotional manipulator who launched a three year-long \u201ccampaign of harassment\u201d against the McCanns, including calls, messages and turning up at their address.<\/p>\n
The crown court jury was told that Wandelt, from Poland, would claim to have memories of being in their household, being part of family events and playing with Madeleine\u2019s siblings, though this should not be believed.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor, Michael Duck KC, said: \u201cOne might be tempted to think that has some measure of credibility. But at this very early stage of the trial, can we make it clear that Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madeleine McCann was three when she disappeared on holiday in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.
Photograph: PA<\/p>\n
At these words, Wandelt, wearing a white shirt, began crying loudly, stood up and attempted to leave the dock through a back door leading to the cells.<\/p>\n
She was comforted by her co-defendant Karen Spragg, 61, who hugged her and appeared to be telling her to stay calm. Spragg, from Cardiff, is accused of joining Wandelt in her stalking campaign of the McCanns. The pair deny the charges.<\/p>\n
Duck said Wandelt had \u201cno familial link\u201d to the McCanns and that, during the trial, the jury would be shown detailed scientific evidence to support that.<\/p>\n
He said Wandelt was nearly two years older than Madeleine would be, an inconvenient truth that she had tried to make excuses for by saying that she looked young for her age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen faced with awkward propositions, attempts were made to find a way around them\u201d but she had \u201cnowhere to go\u201d when faced with scientific evidence, he said.<\/p>\n
The jury was told she had previously pretended to be two other missing children, Inga Gehricke from Germany, who was born eight years after her, and Acacia Bishop from the US, whose grandmother stood trial for the girl\u2019s murder but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n
The court heard how Wandelt used ChatGPT to make fake pictures that she sent to Madeleine\u2019s younger sister, who is now an adult, that purported to show them both as young children.<\/p>\n
In messages to Amelie McCann that Duck described as \u201cemotional manipulation of the first order\u201d, Wandelt introduced herself as \u201cthis girl that went viral saying she thinks she\u2019s Madeleine McCann\u201d. She said she had had hypnosis and \u201cgot so many flashbacks\u201d about being Madeleine, something the prosecutor said would have been \u201cextremely distressing\u201d for Amelie.<\/p>\n
Wandelt is also accused of sending messages, voicemails, emails and letters to Kate and Gerry McCann, as well as turning up in their Leicestershire village and at their home between 1 June 2022 and 21 February this year.<\/p>\n
The jury was told how she called Kate McCann\u2019s number on what appeared to be 60 occasions and left voicemails that were played to the court.<\/p>\n
In one, Wandelt could be heard to say: \u201cIf I\u2019m her then everything will be OK, and if I\u2019m not, as you probably think, then I will leave you alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI know I look fat and I know I\u2019m not pretty \u2026 but I know what I know and I know what I remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wandelt blamed \u201clarge corruption\u201d for the reason she had not been identified as Madeleine, and said the media had made her \u201clook crazy\u201d, adding: \u201cDon\u2019t give up on our daughter because I\u2019m not a liar and I\u2019m not crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman claiming to be Madeleine McCann broke down in the dock as a Leicester jury was told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-182071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}