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A Polish national who claimed to be Madeleine McCann "maintained that false narrative" and stalked the missing girl's parents by sending emails, making phone calls and turning up at their address, a court has heard.

The first defendant and Julia Wandelt carried out a "campaign of harassment", the court was informed, and in one defendant's situation, that lasted for thirty months.

On Monday, jurors were told Ms Wandelt repeatedly claimed she was Madeleine and was abducted and transported to Poland.

The first accused and the second accused each contest a count of stalking resulting in serious alarm and anxiety to Kate and Gerry McCann between mid-2022 and early this year.

Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 - at the age of three during a vacation in Portugal - is among the most extensively covered missing child cases and continues unresolved.

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

"Among numerous tragic consequences for Madeleine's parents has been their ongoing struggle to escape the glare of publicity that came with that tragedy.

"The focus they have received has sometimes lacked sympathetic, at times far from it.

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

"Regrettably, these two defendants belong to that latter group."

Escalating Behavior

Testimony revealed from mid-2022, the defendant had begun to speak to "any willing listener" that she was Madeleine.

Legal authorities said that, in January 2023, the accused was in contact with a organization in Poland created to help with long-term disappearance incidents and offer support and guidance to people seeking those who had disappeared.

According to court testimony, the defendant first claimed she was missing German girl from Germany.

But after these assertions were dismissed by the organization, Ms Wendalt then reached out to the group with a belief she could be another missing child - a disappeared infant from Utah in the US - before messaging them about her insistence she was the British missing child.

'Did Not Deter'

The defendant's conviction escalated to an attempt to call the hospital where both the McCanns worked.

A lengthy telephone conversation to the reception resulted in a notification from the health service representative to Operation Grange, the UK inquiry into the disappearance.

Court proceedings revealed Ms Wandelt made additional efforts to contact the authorities and then Mr McCann directly via email in mid-2023.

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

She continued people were "attempting to conceal the case" and asserted there were resemblances 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 communication with Madeleine's younger sister Amelie via online platforms.

Telling her she was her "sole chance", she sent altered photographs to show they were "somehow related" and asserted possessing memories of life before the abduction, the trial was told.

These assertions, the proceedings revealed, were restated in this year when the defendant is alleged to have "repeatedly" contacted Mrs McCann's mobile over the course of a day - referring to her as "mother", claiming to recall giving food to the family's son Sean, of playing ring a roses in the rear yard of the residence in the Leicestershire village, Leicestershire, and of the night the disappearance occurred.

In one message, she stated: "I recall you came to my bedroom before the abduction, touched my hair and said 'I care for you and I will find you'."

The trial of the first defendant, of an address in the Polish city, the country, and Ms Spragg, of Caerau Court Road in the Welsh city, continues.