🔗 Share this article

A woman accused with harassing Kate McCann allegedly recorded her a recorded message which asked: "imagine I am Madeleine?"

The defendant, 24, who witnesses stated has consistently asserted she was the disappeared Madeleine McCann, and her co-defendant are on trial charged with stalking Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February 2025.

On Monday, Leicester Crown Court heard call records and data retrieved from phones documented Ms Wandelt repeatedly demanding Madeleine's mother for a genetic test over the past two years.

Madeleine's vanishing in 2007 - at the age of three during a family holiday in Portugal - is considered the most widely reported missing child cases and is still unsolved.

'I Do Not Need Money'

A separate voicemail, presented in court, recorded Ms Wandelt declaring: "I know I'm heavy and plain like Madeleine used to be, but I feel what I feel."

While a separate message of Ms Wandelt's monologues with Mrs McCann's recording expressed: "Suppose there is a slight possibility that I'm her? Then what? Is that not crucial for you?"

"I don't want money, I maintain a existence here in Poland, I simply desire to understand," the recording stated.

The panel was advised that through electronic messages, SMS messages and calls, Ms Wandelt demanded a DNA test, sent childhood photos to her phone in a effort to show a resemblance to Mrs McCann's disappeared daughter, and asserted to have "flashbacks" from a early life with the McCanns.

The investigator, an investigator with the police force who collated the evidence, told the court there "seemed to lack any replies" from Mrs McCann.

Ms Wandelt also communicated with family friends of the McCanns, as per the phone records.

On that date, Mr McCann answered a communication from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, declaring she had "a wrong number."

That day Ms Wandelt left a voicemail on Mrs McCann's answerphone stating "I won't give up and I plan to establish my claim."

The court was informed the co-defendant developed a relationship through digital means with Ms Wandelt prior to joining her on a visit to the McCanns' home in Leicestershire in last December.

Phone records demonstrated Mrs Spragg had communicated through WhatsApp to Mrs McCann to say the news outlets had portrayed Ms Wandelt as "a crazy person" but that she should be treated respectfully in the period before the visit to the village, the county, in that winter.

The court heard communications between the two individuals, in last November, considering trying to obtain Mrs McCann's biological evidence from her trash or from cutlery at a restaurant.

"We need to assert ourselves," the co-defendant told Ms Wandelt.

On the night of the appearance to their residence, the defendant dispatched a text which stated: "We are positioned adjacent to the McCanns' residence with our vehicle dark resembling private investigators. I desired to do this with another person I hadn't anticipated I would be involved in this with the McCanns."

The trial continues.