Full timeline of events as woman claiming to be Madeleine McCann is arrested moments after landing in UK
A woman who claimed that she might be Madeleine McCann has been arrested after arriving into Bristol Airport yesterday (19 February).
McCann disappeared from her family hotel room in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007 at the age of three.
Madeleine and two of her siblings had been left in the room by their parents Kate and Gerry McCann while they went to a restaurant near the hotel.
Kate McCann returned to the room and found Madeleine missing, with her case becoming one of the most reported on missing persons cases of all time.
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There have been a number of unsuccessful search efforts, while in 2020 officials in Germany named Christian Brückner as a prime suspect, he denies any involvement in her disappearance.
Two years ago a Polish woman claimed that she could be Madeleine McCann, and was arrested upon arriving in the UK yesterday (19 February).
February 2023 - The initial claims
Julia Wandelt gained viral fame two years ago when she posted her claims that she might be Madeleine McCann onto the Instagram account @iammadeleinemccan.
Also going by the names Julia Faustyna or Julia Wendell, she claimed that she couldn't remember much of her childhood but had some memories of a beach, and also claimed to have a freckle on her leg like McCann.
Both she and McCann had coloboma of the iris, a rare condition that only affects one in every 10,000 babies.
She also claimed that her age at the time, 21, might be incorrect as at the time she made the claims Madeleine McCann would have been 19 years old.
Wandelt claimed that her parents struggled to show her pictures from her childhood and didn't directly answer her questions, instead dismissing her concerns that she might be adopted.
In response, her parents released the following statement: "For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughters, sister, niece, cousin and step niece.
"Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet. The interest won’t forget, and it’s obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie. We are devastated at this current situation."
April 2023 - The DNA test
The Polish woman went on Dr Phil for a DNA test, with plans to announce the results in front of his audience.
Once the tests were done it was announced that Wandelt was 'absolutely 100 percent from Poland'.
Dr Fia Johansson, psychic medium and Wandelt's representative at the time, said: "She is a small percentage of Lithuanian and Russian, but the test results show she is Polish.
"We learned a few things, one being that Julia’s mum is in fact now believed to be her mum, so she is not Madeleine McCann."
Wandelt later apologised to Kate and Gerry McCann,
She said: "I don’t remember most of my memories but I can remember some things and I never said that I am Madeleine McCann.
“I used this sentence to create a [name] for my old instagram account, it was my mistake and I know it and I apologize for that because I should use [the] words ‘Am I Madeleine McCann’, not ‘I am’.
"So it was my fault and it wasn’t my intention to bring sadness or another negative emotions to anyone, especially to McCann family. My main purpose was always to find out who I am and what exactly happened in my very hurtful past.”
She said she went public with her suspicions because 'nobody helped me with finding the truth earlier' and suggested that her birth certificate might be forged.
January 2024 - Wandelt says she regrets her actions
Speaking to the BBC in January of the following year, Wandelt said she 'never meant to hurt anyone' and regretted what had happened.
She claimed that she had 'wanted to know the truth' about who she was and said she hadn't made her claims to try and gain fame.
Wandelt told the BBC that if she could go back in time she would never have made her profile, having received abuse on social media from people after it was revealed that she was not Madeleine McCann.
The Polish woman said that there had still been some followers who stuck with her despite the DNA results.
February 2025 - The arrest
Two women were arrested, one of them Julia Wandelt, by police after arriving by plane into Bristol.
Leicestershire Police said: "Last night (Wednesday 19 February) two women were arrested at Bristol Airport as part of an ongoing investigation.
"A 23-year-old woman from Poland and a 60-year-old woman from Wales were arrested on suspicion of stalking involving serious alarm/distress. They both remain in custody and enquiries are continuing."
The two women have not yet been formally charged.
Topics: Madeleine McCann, UK News, Crime, World News
Joe Harker