Suspected Harasser Questioned: 'Yet Suppose I Could Be Madeleine?'
A female accused with pursuing Kate McCann allegedly deposited her a phone message which questioned: "suppose I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, 24, who a jury heard has persistently claimed she was the vanished Madeleine McCann, and Karen Spragg are on trial indicted with pursuing Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.
On Monday, the court was told phone records and data recovered from phones documented Ms Wandelt repeatedly demanding Madeleine's mother for a genetic test throughout 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's case in 2007 - at the age of three during a trip in Portugal - is considered the most covered investigations and continues to be open.
'I Do Not Need Money'
One phone message, played in court, captured Ms Wandelt stating: "I understand I'm fat and not pretty like Madeleine was, but I know what I feel."
While one recording of Ms Wandelt's one-way conversations with Mrs McCann's voicemail expressed: "Suppose there is a tiny probability that I am Madeleine? What then? Wouldn't that be crucial for you?"
"I do not need money, I have a life here in Poland, I only wish to discover," she added.
The tribunal was informed that via emails, text messages and communications, Ms Wandelt demanded a biological test, sent youth pictures to her phone in a bid to demonstrate a resemblance to Mrs McCann's missing daughter, and claimed to have "memories" from a youth with the McCanns.
Robert Jones, an investigator with the police force who gathered the information, told the court there "seemed to lack any responses" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt additionally reached out to close associates of the McCanns, based on the phone records.
On 9 October 2024, Mr McCann responded to a call from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, saying she had "a wrong number."
On that occasion Ms Wandelt deposited a recording on Mrs McCann's answerphone saying "I will persist and I plan to establish my claim."
The court was informed the co-defendant struck up a association via internet with Ms Wandelt preceding assisting her on a appearance to the McCanns' home in Leicestershire in that winter.
Phone records revealed Mrs Spragg had communicated through WhatsApp to Mrs McCann to say the press had depicted Ms Wandelt as "emotionally disturbed" but that she deserved to be taken seriously in the time before the visit to the village, Leicestershire, in that winter.
The court was told message exchanges between the two defendants, in that autumn, planning trying to acquire Mrs McCann's biological evidence from her bins or from utensils at a dining venue.
"We must make a stand," the co-defendant told Ms Wandelt.
On the night of the trip to their residence, the defendant sent a communication which said: "We find ourselves positioned outside the McCanns' house with our headlights off like detectives. I had hoped to do this with another person I never thought I would be engaged in this with the McCanns."
The proceedings ongoing.