In evidence that has brought the unsolved disappearance of Madeleine McCann back into sharp focus, the senior investigating officer of Operation Grange has described how he deliberately stepped outside established police practice and arranged a DNA comparison that proved a persistent claimant was not the missing girl, acting solely in the hope that the result might bring an end to a campaign of harᴀssment against her family. Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell told Leicester Crown Court that Julia Wandelt, twenty-four and of Polish nationality, had been one of thirteen individuals who over the years ᴀsserted they were Madeleine, the toddler who disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007. Cranwell explained that the force’s long-standing approach was never to take DNA from such people unless there was already a solid foundation for believing the individual could genuinely be Madeleine.

The reasons were practical and protective. If it became widely known that DNA was being taken from claimants with little supporting evidence, the inquiry risked being overwhelmed by further ᴀssertions. Equally, any approach to the McCann family to discuss a possible test carried the danger of raising expectations that could prove emotionally harmful if the outcome was negative. In Wandelt’s case officers had already concluded she was not Madeleine because of the lack of physical resemblance and the fact that she was two years older than the missing child would have been. Yet when Cranwell discovered that Leicestershire Police intended to arrest her on suspicion of stalking, he authorised the collection of a DNA sample upon arrest specifically for comparison purposes.

The result was conclusive: Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann. Cranwell later visited Wandelt while she was in custody in April of this year and informed her of the finding with the direct statement “You are not Madeleine McCann.” During that conversation she asked whether he really wanted to find Madeleine and he replied that he did. Even then, he told the jury, he believed there remained a real possibility that Wandelt would allege the sample had been tampered with and would never accept the scientific proof. The DNA decision was made against the background of what the court has heard was a prolonged and frightening series of contacts. From 2022 until earlier this year Wandelt and her co-defendant Karen Spragg, sixty-one from Cardiff, subjected Kate and Gerry McCann and their adult children Sean and Amelie to hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters. The pair also appeared at the family home demanding a DNA test. Prosecutors have told the jury that the defendants’ plans became increasingly bizarre and included attempts to collect Kate McCann’s DNA by searching through the family’s bins and by taking forks from restaurants where the McCanns had dined. Both women deny one count of stalking and the trial continues.

Cranwell’s choice to order the test represents a rare and carefully weighed exception to the safeguards that have surrounded Operation Grange for nearly two decades. By obtaining the comparison he sought to remove one source of ongoing distress from a family that has lived with unresolved loss and intense public scrutiny since 2007. The laboratory result stands as definitive scientific evidence, yet the court proceedings show that the practical and emotional impact of the alleged campaign has not been erased by that finding. For the McCanns the months of unwanted intrusion, the involvement of police and the courts, and the discovery that another person had constructed a detailed belief that she was their daughter have compounded a tragedy that began on a Portuguese holiday and continues to cast a long shadow. The jury must now decide whether the actions described amount to the criminal offence of stalking. Regardless of the eventual outcome, the DNA test authorised against protocol has provided a clear and final answer to one particular claim, delivered by a detective who judged that the risk of encouraging further claimants was outweighed by the possibility of ending the harᴀssment that had so unsettled the family.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/14/secret-dna-test-confirmed-alleged-stalker-was-not-madeleine-mccann-says-officer