Kate McCann told a jury she had been left “distressed” and fearful by a young woman who for nearly three years called, messaged and even appeared at the family home while insisting she was the couple’s missing daughter, Madeleine, before the defendant broke down in the dock and cried, “Why are you doing this to me?” as court officers led her away. Giving evidence at Leicester Crown Court from behind a screen, McCann described repeated contacts from the Polish national Julia Wandelt, 24, who prosecutors say embarked on a sustained course of conduct with a second woman, 61-year-old Karen Spragg, that caused “serious alarm or distress” to McCann and her husband, Gerry, between 2022 and early 2025. Both defendants deny stalking. The outburst came as McCann finished an account of how the claim to be her daughter escalated from messages and letters to an uninvited encounter on her doorstep.
McCann said the most upsetting moments were when Wandelt addressed her as “Mum,” including in a letter signed “Madeleine x.” She told jurors she had tried to absorb the communications coolly but that the repeated use of that word “was deeply unsettling” and at times “very distressing.” She explained that while police had told the family the claim was false, the persistence of the allegations, and their emotional precision, occasionally caused a flash of doubt “in a weak moment.” She said the letter and a stream of voicemails and emails left her irritable, unable to concentrate and worried about the effect on her family.
The court heard that on 7 December 2024 the two defendants travelled to the McCanns’ home, where, according to the prosecution, Wandelt asked again for a DNA test and tried to keep McCann talking in the doorway. McCann told the jury she was frightened by the unannounced visit and attempted to close the door. Gerry McCann, who also gave evidence, said he confronted the pair and told the younger woman directly: “You’re not Madeleine,” adding that he had already been “very confident” from photographs that the claim was baseless. An audio clip played to jurors captured a tense exchange on the drive where he pleaded with them to stop.
As Kate McCann’s account concluded, reporters in court said Wandelt sobbed loudly and shouted, “Why are you doing this to me?” before she was escorted from the courtroom for a short adjournment. When proceedings resumed, the judge reminded jurors that McCann was entitled to give evidence from behind a screen and that no inference should be drawn from courtroom security measures. The exchange underscored the raw intersection of a family’s 18-year ordeal and an allegation that an outsider had appropriated their missing child’s identity.