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An accused stalker who insisted to be the missing girl was excluded after a secret DNA test established beyond doubt she was not the missing girl, investigators stated in court.

Stalking Allegations Against McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, is accused of a pattern of threatening behavior against the relatives of Madeleine, who vanished from a Portuguese resort in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three.

The Polish national bombarded Kate and Gerry McCann and their older offspring, Sean and Amelie, with countless communications, messages, voicemails and letters over a period spanning 2022 to this year, and visited their home insisting on a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Police Testimony

Testifying on Tuesday, the chief investigator on the missing person’s case, explained he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “intending she may stop her actions towards the McCann family”.

DCI Mark Cramwell said over a dozen persons had in the past insisted to be Madeleine McCann but that: “We would not take DNA unless we believed that person was Madeleine because I aimed to prevent 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 a lot of people coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I sincerely hold major concerns about reaching out to the family to say I aim to take DNA from an individual – that could have given them false hope. It could have been very traumatic and hard for the family.”

Genetic Testing

He said the police had earlier determined Wandelt not to be Madeleine because of a lack of resemblance and that she was not the same age than the child. But, he said, after finding out Leicester police intended to detain Wandelt on harassment allegations, he “determined that the DNA would be taken when she was apprehended”.

He stated: “Analysis occurred. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann.”

Court Proceedings

Proceedings revealed that in April this year, the detective visited Wandelt under arrest and stated to her that her DNA had been compared to Madeleine’s and that the profiles did not match. The court learned he told Wandelt while speaking with her: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

The court heard that while they spoke, Wandelt asked: “Do you really want to find Madeleine?”, and Cranwell told the jury he responded: “Yes.”

He said notwithstanding the evidence, he believed Wandelt “might claim we have manipulated the sample”, adding: “There was a possibility she would never accept she cannot be Madeleine notwithstanding scientific proof.”

Psychological Toll

Earlier in the trial, testimony revealed how the family were left terrified and traumatized by their “unnerving” and “profoundly unsettling” interactions with Wandelt and her alleged accomplice Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as the pair attempted to insist on a DNA test.

The court learned how the defendants made “increasingly bizarre plans” to acquire Kate McCann’s DNA, which included going through the McCanns’ bins and taking forks from restaurants that the McCanns dined at.

The accused women both contest one count of stalking. The trial continues.