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An individual from Poland who claimed to be the missing girl "maintained that false narrative" and harassed the missing girl's parents by sending emails, making phone calls and appearing at their residence, a court has heard.

Karen Spragg and the second defendant carried out a "systematic intimidation", the court was informed, and in Ms Wandelt's case, that lasted for two and a half years.

On Monday, the court heard Ms Wandelt repeatedly claimed she was Madeleine and was abducted and transported to the European nation.

Ms Spragg and Ms Wandelt each deny a charge of harassment causing serious alarm and distress to Madeleine's parents between June 2022 and February this year.

Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 - at the age of three during a family holiday in Portugal - is one of the most extensively covered missing child cases and remains unsolved.

The prosecutor also mentioned the global attention that the disappearance had directed toward the family.

"Among numerous tragic consequences for the McCann family has been their ongoing struggle to avoid the spotlight of media attention that accompanied that tragedy.

"The attention they have received has not always been compassionate, at times quite the opposite.

"There continues to exist a group of individuals who continue to fail to acknowledge their situation and perpetuate unfounded claims.

"Unfortunately, these two defendants fall into that second category."

Increasing Actions

The court heard from mid-2022, Ms Wandelt had begun to speak to "anyone who would care to listen" that she was Madeleine.

The prosecutor said that, in January 2023, the accused was in contact with a Polish charity established to assist with long-term disappearance incidents and provide assistance and advice to people looking for individuals who had gone missing.

Based on the prosecutor, the defendant initially said she was missing German girl Inga Gehricke.

But after these assertions were dismissed by the organization, Ms Wendalt then contacted the charity with a belief she could be another missing child - a missing baby from the American state in the US - before contacting them about her persistent claim she was Madeleine McCann.

'Failed to Stop'

Her belief progressed to an attempt to call the medical facility where both the McCanns were employed.

A lengthy telephone conversation to the reception resulted in a notification from the NHS trust's communications manager to Operation Grange, the UK inquiry into the vanishing.

Court proceedings revealed the defendant made additional efforts to contact the authorities and then Mr McCann personally through electronic mail in June 2023.

In a message, she stated: "I could be your daughter, there's a chance I'm her."

She added people were "trying to cover up the case" and asserted there were similarities between her and Madeleine, including having marks in the same places.

But her efforts went unanswered, which the prosecutor said "failed to discourage" Ms Wendelt - who then made contact with Madeleine's younger sister Amelie via social media.

Telling her she was her "only hope", she transmitted altered photographs to show they were "somehow related" and asserted possessing recollections of events prior to disappearance, the trial was told.

These assertions, the court heard, were repeated in 2024 when the defendant is accused of "repeatedly" contacted Mrs McCann's cell phone over the course of a day - referring to her as "mommy", asserting memory of feeding Madeleine's younger brother the boy, of playing children's games in the rear yard of the family's home in the Leicestershire village, Leicestershire, and of the night Madeleine was abducted.

In a communication, she stated: "I recall you visited my bedroom before the abduction, touched my hair and said 'I care for you and I'll locate you'."

Court proceedings of the first defendant, of an address in Lubin, the country, and the second defendant, of Caerau Court Road in Cardiff, continues.