A senior police officer has revealed in court that a secret DNA test was carried out on a woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann, and the results conclusively proved she was not the missing girl.

Julia Wandelt, 24, from Poland, is on trial at Leicester Crown Court accused of stalking the McCann family. Prosecutors say she subjected Kate and Gerry McCann and their children Sean and Amelie to a sustained campaign of harassment between 2022 and earlier this year. The court has heard that Wandelt bombarded the family with hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters, and even appeared at their home demanding a DNA comparison.

Why the Test Was Carried Out
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell, the senior investigating officer for the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange, told the jury he made the unusual decision to authorise a DNA test against normal procedure. He said 13 people had previously claimed to be Madeleine, but police avoided taking DNA samples from most of them because they did not want to set a precedent or raise false hope for the family.

In Wandelt’s case, officers had already concluded she was not Madeleine because of her appearance and the fact that she is two years older than the missing girl would have been. However, once Leicester police decided to arrest her on stalking charges, Cranwell ordered that a DNA sample be taken.

“A comparison took place. It conclusively proved that Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann,” he told the court.

Cranwell later visited Wandelt in custody and informed her of the result, telling her directly: “You are not Madeleine McCann.” He said he still believed she might refuse to accept the scientific proof and could claim the sample had been tampered with.

Impact on the McCann Family
Earlier evidence described how the McCanns found the contacts “creepy” and “deeply disturbing.” The court heard that Wandelt and her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, made increasingly bizarre plans to obtain Kate McCann’s DNA themselves. These allegedly included going through the family’s bins and taking cutlery from restaurants the McCanns had used.

Both women deny one count of stalking. The trial is continuing.

Background
Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on 3 May 2007 at the age of three. Despite extensive investigations in the UK, Portugal and Germany, she has never been found. Operation Grange remains an active missing persons inquiry.

The revelation that police took the unusual step of testing Wandelt’s DNA underlines the pressure the family has faced from people claiming to be their missing daughter, and the lengths investigators have sometimes gone to in order to shut those claims down.

Main Sources: The Guardian and court reporting from Leicester Crown Court.