Kate McCann was left ‘visibly upset’ after being confronted at home by a Polish woman claiming to be her missing daughter Madeleine, a court heard.
In a recording of the encounter played to a court an emotional Mrs McCann pleads with Julia Wandelt and her supporter Karen Spragg to leave her driveway telling them: ‘You are causing us a lot of distress. Stop it.’
When her husband Gerry McCann returns home moments later he can be heard telling Wandelt: ‘You need help – you are not Madeleine. Please do not hassle us. We are not having a discussion.’
Wandelt, 24, later posted a letter through the couple’s door in which she called Mrs McCann ‘mummy’. It was signed ‘Madeleine’, jurors were told.
The court heard Wandelt and Spratt also discussed rummaging through the McCanns’ rubbish or following them to a restaurant to steal cutlery in an attempt to find something they could take a DNA sample from.
Wandelt, from Poland, and Spragg, 61, of Cardiff, are on trial accused of stalking the McCanns, causing them ‘serious alarm or distress’, between June 1, 2022, and February 21, 2025.
On the second day of their trial at Leicester Crown Court on Tuesday, prosecutor Michael Duck said Mrs McCann was left ‘extremely upset’ following the ‘aggressive’ encounter with Wandelt and Spragg outside her home in Rothley, Leicestershire on the evening of December 7 last year.
Mr Duck said as Mrs McCann went into her house, Wandelt tried to stop her from closing the door. The two women then continued to bang on the front door and were still there when Mr McCann, also 57, arrived home.
Kate McCann, left, was left ‘extremely upset’ following the ‘aggressive’ encounter with Wandelt and Spragg outside her home in Rothley, Leicestershire on the evening of December 7
Julia Wandelt, 24, also posted a letter through the couple’s door in which she called Mrs McCann ‘mummy’, jurors were told. It was signed ‘Madeleine’.
Wandelt’s ‘supporter’ Karen Spragg arriving at Leicester Crown Court on Monday
The court heard both women shouted at him and tried to force a letter in his hand.
Mr Duck said the visit caused ‘obvious distress’ to the McCanns adding: ‘It was the plainest of intrusions and the fear it caused was inevitable.’
Wandelt had travelled from Poland in December to go to the McCann’s house, arriving at East Midlands airport where she was greeted by Spragg in her car.
The court heard Spragg sent a message to a friend which read: ‘We are sat outside the mccanns home waiting for them to come home. We are sat like private investigators with car lights out… never thought I would be stalking the mccans.’
Mr Duck said: ‘Their attendance outside the McCanns’ address was the result of complex planning and the expenditure of significant amounts of money.
‘Whatever they suggest their beliefs or understandings they do not afford someone the right to lie in wait for their targets, outside their own home, and enforce their will upon them – that is precisely what happened.’
The following day, a letter was posted through the McCanns’ door which began: ‘Dear Mum (Kate’). In the note, Wandelt apologised for causing her distress but said she felt a ‘strong connection’ to Mrs McCann.
She wrote: ‘I think that inside your heart you believe and know who I am and I am your daughter.
‘I don’t understand why you won’t do a DNA test with me. I think you are scared….yesterday I heard a lot of care and love in your voice. I believe and I hope that you will find a way to contact me.’
It ended, in what Mr Duck said was a ‘final cruel signature’ with ‘lots of love Madeleine’.
Mr Duck said the letter showed she ‘recognised the damage and distress that she causing’.
The court was told Wandelt had earlier tried to attend a vigil in the McCanns’ village and had accosted the village priest and Mrs McCann’s great aunt, Janet Kennedy, when she discovered Mr and Mrs McCann were not there.
She also contacted David and Fiona Payne, friends of the McCanns and members of the so-called ‘Tapas Seven’ who were there on the night Madeleine disappeared.
One message sent on Christmas Eve 2024 sent a message to Mr Payne read ‘Merry Christmas David. The truth will set you all free’.
On another occasion she left a note and bottle of wine on the doorstep of the McCann’s home as part of her efforts to get the McCanns take a DNA test.
The court heard Wandelt’s DNA was taken by police in May 2024 but destroyed once it was ‘discovered that there was no prospect’ she was Madeleine.
Mr Duck explained Spragg ‘was a forthright supporter of the conspiracy theory’ that the McCanns were ‘some way involved in the disappearance of their daughter, despite the unequivocal evidence to the contrary’.
He told jurors the two women began to communicate in earnest in mid-2024.
Mr Duck said messages sent to Operation Grange – the Met police operation looking into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann – revealed Spragg’s ‘real feelings about the case’.
One, sent on November 10, said: ‘Everyone knows the McCanns are guilty and you know the truth and a massive cover up is happening’.
He said the ends to which the two women were prepared to go were ‘remarkable’ and included discussion removing bags of rubbish from the McCanns’ address.
In another message Spragg said: ‘Shame we cant follow them to a bar or restaurant and get a knife or fork.’
Mr Duck said Spragg was ‘front and centre of the pursuit of the McCanns’.
The court was told that Wandelt also purported to have very clear memories of ‘her’ abduction in May 2007 – claiming to have been injected before being taken by a man with ‘tanned skin’.
She told a police officer: ‘Someone gave me to the person who took me. Before it happened I remember being abused by one man in the room.
‘A few other people were there too. Someone injected me with something that made me feel paralysed…I saw the man who took me from the other person through the window, had tanned skin, dark hair and was slim.
‘I remember a lot…I prefer not to go into details before getting crime reference number.’
Madeleine McCann’s (pictured) disappearance while on a family holiday in Portugal’s Algarve at the age of three in 2007 is one of the most widely reported missing child cases in history and remains unsolved
She also claimed the McCanns were ‘involved in the planned kidnapping and abduction’ of their daughter.
Mr Duck told jurors: ‘A very cruel contention to make and none of that information can, of course, be true.’
The court was told her attempts continued, even after being warned by police.
In January she sent Mrs McCann an image of a foetus and a message which read ‘I know you’re my real Mummy. Help me please. I know Gerry is controlling you and you’re probably scared of him but please get in touch with me…’
The court heard Wandelt was arrested when she arrived at Bristol airport in February, on a flight paid for by Spragg, having made plans to go to the McCanns’ place of work. Spragg was arrested outside the airport shortly afterwards.
Wandelt largely answered ‘no comment’ in interview save for observing that all she was doing was asking for a DNA test. She denied any intention to harm them.
Spragg accused the McCanns of arranging the abduction of their daughter.
Mr Duck said the women followed ‘a determined course of conduct’ and both were ‘aware of the distress they were causing.’
He added: ‘They embarked on this course…it was planned, deliberate, it was determined and it would not have stopped was it not for the police.
Anyone who behaves in that way to those people …knows the distress they were going to cause and care not.’
The trial, due to last three weeks, continues.
