For nearly three years, a bizarre and unsettling saga unfolded between a young Polish woman and the family of Madeleine McCann, the British child who vanished without a trace during a family holiday in Portugal back in May 2007. The story, which began in the shadowy corners of social media and escalated to the front steps of the McCanns’ home, culminated this week in a Leicester courtroom, where 24-year-old Julia Wandelt was found guilty of harassing Kate and Gerry McCann.
The case has gripped headlines across the UK and beyond, not only for its connection to one of the world’s most infamous missing child cases, but also for the extraordinary lengths to which Wandelt went in her campaign. According to 7NEWS, Wandelt’s harassment spanned from June 2022 until her arrest in February 2025 and included a barrage of emails, phone calls, and social media messages. She even traveled to the British village where the McCanns now live and, in December 2024, confronted Kate McCann on her doorstep, insisting, “I’m not lying. Please, I have DNA.”
Security footage played in court captured the tense moment. Wandelt was accompanied by Karen Spragg, a 61-year-old woman who supported her claims and helped orchestrate the confrontation. “She is your daughter,” Spragg pressed. Kate McCann, visibly distressed, replied, “You’re not my daughter.” The encounter, and a letter addressed to “mum” that Wandelt sent the following day, left the McCann family feeling, in Kate’s words, “really distressed” and “invaded,” as reported by 9NEWS.
Wandelt’s campaign was not a spontaneous act. Testimony revealed she had been fixated on the McCann case for years, reportedly watching a Netflix documentary about Madeleine McCann over a hundred times while living in a guesthouse in early 2023. Dr. Fia Johansson, a former confidant who once supported Wandelt’s claims, told The Sun that Wandelt “had been studying the McCann case for years and years since 2021; she had a whole file with evidence from the UK and Portuguese police investigations stored on her phone.” Medical documents and childhood photos belonging to Wandelt were later found hidden under a mattress where she stayed.
Despite her fervor, scientific evidence would ultimately unravel Wandelt’s assertions. Prosecutors told the jury there was “unequivocal scientific evidence” that Wandelt had no familial link to the McCanns. A DNA test conducted in 2025 proved conclusively that she was not Madeleine. The revelation reportedly left Wandelt sobbing in the dock, as 9NEWS described.
Throughout the five-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, the McCanns recounted the emotional toll of Wandelt’s actions. Both Kate and Gerry McCann, as well as Madeleine’s younger sister Amelie, gave evidence about the distress and disruption the harassment caused. “Despite the jury’s guilty verdict of harassment, we take no pleasure in the result. Like most people, we did not want to go through a court process and only wanted the harassment to stop,” the McCanns said in a statement, as quoted by the Daily Mail. “We hope Ms Wandelt will receive the appropriate care and support she needs, and any vulnerability will not be exploited by others.”
Wandelt herself insisted in court that she never intended harm. “I even have sympathy for them ... because they look for their child and I look for my parents,” she told jurors, as reported by 9NEWS. Her defense argued she was “vulnerable” and acting out of “desperation” because she believed her parents had lied about who she was. Her father, Jacek, a radiologist, revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that his daughter had changed after being abused by a relative. He recalled the last time he saw her, she said, “Daddy, I love you, but you are not my dad. I am Madeleine McCann.”
The trial ended with Wandelt being convicted of harassment but acquitted of stalking. She was sentenced to six months in prison—the maximum for the offense—but had already served the time in custody awaiting trial. Judge Johannah Cutts, during sentencing, acknowledged Wandelt’s troubled upbringing but was clear: “Your family history does not justify the way you behaved.” The judge described Wandelt’s “constant pestering, badgering and eventually attendance at their home address on a dark evening in December” as “unwarranted, unkind, and as the jury have now found, criminal.”
Wandelt was also served with a notice of deportation, and an indefinite restraining order was imposed, forbidding her from contacting the McCanns or publishing information about them. Her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, was acquitted of both stalking and harassment, but received the same restraining order. Judge Cutts remarked that Spragg “enjoyed the drama” and had supported Wandelt while “indulging in her conspiracy theories.”
Wandelt’s family, meanwhile, expressed concern over the attention their daughter’s campaign had generated. “She always wanted to be popular. What’s happening now has given her one million followers. We’re scared,” they said in a statement reported by the Daily Mail. The story also highlighted the role of online conspiracy theorists, who fueled Wandelt’s obsession and amplified her claims across social media platforms.
The McCanns, for their part, have endured nearly two decades of public scrutiny and heartbreak since Madeleine’s disappearance. Every year, they issue a statement on the anniversary of her disappearance, urging anyone with information to come forward. The case remains unsolved, though German prosecutors have named Christian Brückner—a man with a history of sex crimes—as their prime suspect. Brückner was released from a German prison in September 2025 after serving a sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal, the same region where Madeleine disappeared. He has not been charged in connection with the McCann case.
As the legal chapter of Julia Wandelt’s story closes, the McCanns’ ordeal continues—haunted by a mystery that, for now, remains unsolved, and by the persistent shadow of those who claim to know the truth.
