A woman on trial for allegedly stalking the parents of Madeleine McCann sent them a letter signed 'Madeleine x' and claimed to remember being abducted from their holiday apartment in Portugal, a prosecutor has told a jury.
Julia Wandelt, from Poland, is accused of stalking Kate and Gerry McCann over a period of two and a half years by contacting them hundreds of times and accosting them at their home, leaving them upset and worried about their safety. The prosecutor outlined how Wandelt also turned up at a Leicester police station and erroneously claimed to remember being abducted from the apartment in Praia da Luz in 2007, having described 'being abused' by a man.
Leicester Crown Court was played an audio recording of a visit by Wandelt and her co-defendant Karen Spragg, 61, to the McCanns' house in December last year, in which Kate McCann appeared to plead with the pair to leave, saying: 'You're causing us a lot of distress, now stop it.' In a transcript of a second recording, Gerry McCann was heard saying: 'You are not Madeleine … I don't want this, please do not hassle us and leave the premises.'
The following day, the defendants returned to post a letter through the door, addressed to 'Mum (Kate)' and signed 'Madeleine x', which prosecutor Michael Duck KC described as a 'final, cruel signature'. The prosecution also explained how the pair made 'increasingly bizarre plans' to collect Kate's DNA, including going through the McCanns' bins and taking forks from restaurants they had eaten in.
Both defendants deny a count of stalking causing serious alarm and distress. They were arrested at Bristol airport on 19 February as Wandelt made a follow-up visit to the UK.
