Kate McCann ‘wished to take DNA take a look at to place claims to mattress’ as ‘pretend Maddie’ cries in dock

Madeleine McCann’s mum Kate says she contemplated giving into demands for a DNA test to prove an alleged stalker isn’t her missing daughter, a court has heard. She was giving evidence in the trial of two women accused of stalking her family, including Julia Wandelt who claimed to be Madeleine.

Asked if she considered taking the DNA test that Wandelt requested, Kate replied: “Well, no. If I’m honest, the persistence of Julia’s behaviour, It started getting to me. In some ways I wanted to take a DNA test just to put it to bed, even though having seen the photograph I knew it was not her.”

At this point Wandelt began sobbing in the dock. Kate McCann said she became aware through officers working on Operation Grange, the Met Police inquiry into her daughter’s 2007 disappearance, that Wandelt believed herself to be Madeleine.

Prosecutor Michael Duck KC then read excerpts of messages Wandelt sent to Mrs McCann, in which the defendant said “let me prove I am not a liar” and “give me a chance, I don’t want money”.

After confirming that she could remember the messages “arriving” at her mobile phone, Mrs McCann was asked by Mr Duck if she had responded to the messages.

Mrs McCann answered: “No. I did not want to engage.”

Prosecutor Michael Duck KC asked Kate McCann about a voicemail message left on her phone by Julia Wandelt which asked her and husband Gerry for a DNA test to be carried out.

He said: “Was that something you had a willingness or desire to do?”

Mrs McCann replied: “If I’m honest, because of the persistence of Julia’s behaviour, it did start to get to me.

“I almost wanted a DNA test to put it to bed… from the photographs.. I knew it wasn’t her.”

Asked by the Crown’s barrister Michael Duck KC about a visit Julia Wandelt and Karen Spragg made to the McCanns’ home address in Leicestershire on December 7 last year, Kate McCann said it left her “distressed”.

She said: “I pulled up on the drive… it was really dark, it was the weekend, we had the gales.

“I was opening the boot to get something out and I heard someone say ‘Kate’.

“I knew it was someone behind me, but I didn’t know who it was. I had pictures of her (Wandelt), plus she was quite vivid in my mind anyway because of the communications.

“She called me mum I think, she was asking for a DNA test, ‘why wont you do a DNA test?’ and pleading with me.”

Kate told jurors she received a letter from Wandelt signed ‘Madeleine x’ the day after the alleged visit to her home. Asked about the impact of that letter, Kate said: “That’s an example of the thing that was getting to me.

“It’s obvious the thing I want most is for Madeleine to be back, I want Madeleine to call me ‘mum’, so that was really distressing for me.

“Referring to me as her mum is hard.”

Asked by Mr Duck how she felt to be “greeted in that manner on your driveway”, Mrs McCann said: “I got a fright anyway; when I realised who it was I felt quite distressed.

“Then they followed me, I remember trying to close the door and Julia trying to put her hands out to stop me closing the door.”

Wandelt and Spragg both deny stalking Kate and Gerry McCann causing serious alarm or distress between June 2022 and February this year.

Madeleine’s disappearance from Portugal’s Algarve in 2007 remains unsolved.

The trial continues.