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A Polish national who claimed to be Madeleine McCann "maintained that false narrative" and stalked the child's family by dispatching electronic messages, placing telephone calls and appearing at their residence, a court has heard.

The first defendant and the second defendant carried out a "systematic intimidation", Leicester Crown Court heard, and in one defendant's situation, that occurred over thirty months.

On Monday, the court heard the defendant consistently asserted she was the missing child and was taken and taken to the European nation.

Ms Spragg and Ms Wandelt each contest a charge of harassment causing significant distress and anxiety to Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.

The child's vanishing in the year 2007 - at the three years old during a family holiday in Portugal - is among the most widely reported missing child cases and continues unresolved.

Legal counsel also spoke of the global attention that the disappearance had directed toward the family.

"Among numerous devastating outcomes for Madeleine's parents has been their ongoing struggle to avoid the spotlight of media attention that came with that tragedy.

"The attention they have received has not always been compassionate, sometimes far from it.

"There continues to exist a number of people who persist in refusing to acknowledge their situation and perpetuate unfounded claims.

"Regrettably, these accused individuals belong to 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 the missing child.

The prosecutor said that, in January 2023, Ms Wandelt was in communication with a Polish charity established to assist with historic missing persons cases and offer support and advice to people looking for individuals who had gone missing.

According to the prosecutor, the defendant initially said she was missing German girl from Germany.

But after these claims were dismissed by the charity, Ms Wendalt then contacted the charity with a conviction she could be another missing child - a missing baby from Utah in the United States - before messaging them about her insistence she was the British missing child.

'Did Not Deter'

Her belief escalated to an effort to contact the medical facility where the parents worked.

A 20-minute call to the reception resulted in a report back from the NHS trust's communications manager to the investigation team, the British investigation into the vanishing.

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

In one email, she stated: "I could be your daughter, there's a chance I am the missing girl."

She added people were "trying to cover up the story" and asserted there were similarities between her and the child, including having scars in the identical locations.

But her attempts went without response, which the prosecutor said "failed to discourage" the defendant - who then made contact with the family's other daughter the sibling via online platforms.

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

These assertions, the proceedings revealed, were restated in this year when the defendant is accused of "consistently" messaged Mrs McCann's mobile over the span of 24 hours - calling her "mommy", claiming to recall feeding the family's son the boy, of playing children's games in the back garden of the family's home in Rothley, Leicestershire, and of the evening the disappearance occurred.

In a communication, she stated: "I remember you came to my room before the abduction, rubbed my head and said 'I love you and I will find you'."

The trial of Ms Wendalt, of Jana Kochanowskiego in Lubin, Poland, and the second defendant, of a location in Cardiff, continues.