The McCann 'Stalkers' - “She is not Madeleine”

The Trial

The Crime Desk

True Crime

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode Caroline and Claire have the opening day of trial of two women accused of stalking the family of Madeleine McCann. Julie Wandelt is accused of pursuing the family by email, call and text claiming to be their missing daughter who was abducted from Portugal in 2007. Karen Sprat is also accused of adopting her claims “with gusto”. Today as the case began Julia Wandelt broke down into loud sobs as the jury were told she was categorically “not Madeleine.”

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Presenters: Caroline Cheetham and Claire Duffin

Editor: Chelsea Moore

Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham

Producer: Chelsea Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Voice Actors: Lucy Ryan and Rhys Hanson

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

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The Trial series uses actors and some voices generated by AI. Their words are taken as verbatim from the official court transcript.

Click here to sign up to The Crime Desk's weekly newsletter.

It's free and packed with exclusive interviews, expert insight, and gripping deep dive investigations from across the world.

A Daily Mail production.

Seriously Popular.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Trial-Uk
0:07.0	The McCann Stalkers. I'm Caroline Cheatham.
0:11.0	And I'm Claire Duffin.
0:13.0	We're back today with a brand new trial which actually got started at Lester Crown Court in the last few hours.
0:19.0	This is the trial of two women who are accused of
0:22.2	stalking the family of Madeline McCann. Today, the jury was told that Julia Vandelt plagued the
0:28.3	McCannes over the course of three years from 2022 to 2025. And her co-accused Karen Spratt
0:35.2	assisted her. The prosecution says she sent text messages, she made
0:39.4	phone calls and she turned up at the family home demanding they take DNA tests. She insisted
0:46.0	she was their missing daughter, despite we heard today being almost two years older than Madeline.
0:51.9	Today Claire and I have everything from court, including the moment Julia Vandelle burst into tears
0:57.2	and ran to the back of the dock as the jury were told she was unequivocally not Madeline.
1:04.0	Welcome to episode one. She is not Madeline.
1:19.5	Thank you. Hey, D'LIN. Hey, it's Theo, Luke and Joe from the Waffling podcast, and our podcast is currently sponsored by Audible.
1:25.6	Want your next thriller fix? Check out the dropouts, the debut novel by screenwriter Liv Parkinson.
1:31.2	Kaylee Morris is just trying to survive her first year at uni.
1:33.6	A blur of social anxiety and parties.
1:35.7	But when she becomes the talk of the campus,
1:37.8	Kaylee retreats and shuts herself away.
1:39.7	That is until she is chosen for a new module,
1:42.5	to try a new psychedelic drug, believed to cure anxiety.
1:46.1	But soon, the line between reality and fantasy begins to blur, and she feels the pool of a new,
	...

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