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A Polish national who asserted to be the missing girl "pursued that myth" and stalked the child's family by sending emails, placing telephone calls and appearing at their residence, a trial was told.

Karen Spragg and Julia Wandelt conducted a "systematic intimidation", the court was informed, and in one defendant's situation, that occurred over two and a half years.

At the trial's commencement, the court heard the defendant repeatedly claimed she was Madeleine and was taken and taken to the European nation.

Ms Spragg and Ms Wandelt each contest a count of stalking resulting in significant distress and distress to Madeleine's parents between June 2022 and early this year.

Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 - at the three years old during a vacation in Portugal - is among the most widely reported missing child cases and continues unresolved.

Legal counsel also spoke of the international focus that the disappearance had directed toward the parents.

"One of many devastating outcomes for the McCann family has been their constant inability to escape the glare of publicity that came with that incident.

"The focus they have received has sometimes lacked compassionate, sometimes far from it.

"There remains a number of people who persist in refusing to acknowledge their situation and spread unfounded claims.

"Unfortunately, these accused individuals belong to that latter group."

Increasing Actions

Testimony revealed from mid-2022, Ms Wandelt had started telling to "anyone who would care to listen" that she was the missing child.

Legal authorities said that, in January 2023, the accused was in contact with a organization in Poland created to help with historic missing persons cases and provide assistance and advice to people seeking those who had gone missing.

According to court testimony, Ms Wandelt first claimed she was the disappeared child from Germany.

But after these claims were dismissed by the charity, Ms Wendalt then contacted the charity with a conviction she could be Acacia Bishop - a disappeared infant from Utah in the US - before contacting them about her persistent claim she was the British missing child.

'Failed to Stop'

The defendant's conviction progressed to an effort to contact the hospital where both the McCanns were employed.

A 20-minute call to the reception led to a notification from the NHS trust's communications manager to the investigation team, the UK inquiry into the vanishing.

The jury was told Ms Wandelt made additional efforts to contact the authorities and then the father personally through electronic mail in June 2023.

In a message, she stated: "It's possible I am your child, there's a chance I'm her."

She continued people were "trying to cover up the story" and claimed there were resemblances between her and the child, including having marks in the identical locations.

But her efforts went without response, which the prosecutor said "failed to discourage" the defendant - who then made contact with Madeleine's younger sister the sibling via social media.

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

These claims, the court heard, were restated in 2024 when Ms Wendalt is accused of "repeatedly" messaged Mrs McCann's mobile over the course of a day - referring to her as "mommy", asserting memory of feeding Madeleine's younger brother the boy, of engaging in children's games in the rear yard of the family's home in the Leicestershire village, Leicestershire, and of the evening Madeleine was abducted.

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

The trial of the first defendant, of an address in Lubin, Poland, and the second defendant, of Caerau Court Road in Cardiff, proceeds.