ARCHIVE – Kate and Gerry McCann display a missing persons poster showing a computer-generated image of their still-missing daughter Madeleine during a press conference in London, May 2, 2012. Madeleine McCann disappeared as a toddler in Portugal in 2007. Photo: Sang Tan/AP/dpa
Keystone
A young woman who claimed to be the missing Madeleine McCann has been convicted in Leicester, England, of stalking the missing girl’s family.
However, the jury acquitted 24-year-old Julia W. of the charge of stalking, as the PA news agency reported from the courtroom. The jury found the co-defendant Karen S. not guilty.
According to the indictment, the 24-year-old Polish woman had tried countless times to contact Maddie’s parents and repeatedly demanded DNA tests. Both father Gerry and mother Kate reported dozens of phone calls from Julia W. in the courtroom over the past few weeks, and together with the co-defendant she also turned up unannounced at their house.
The McCanns had made it clear to her several times that she could not be their daughter and that they no longer wanted to be contacted by her. When Julia W. then tried to contact Maddie’s sister, the McCanns informed the police, who arrested her and her supporter.
The woman was convicted of “harassment”, which in Germany is roughly equivalent to a conviction for stalking or general harassment.
Disappeared without a trace years ago
According to the judge, the maximum sentence for harassment is six months. Julia W. has been in custody since February. “So she has actually been in custody for longer than the maximum sentence,” the judge explained, according to PA.
Madeleine McCann disappeared without a trace from her parents’ vacation apartment during a vacation in Portugal in 2007 when she was three years old. Despite years of investigation and a great deal of media attention, her fate remains unknown.
Scotland Yard is still treating the Maddie case as a missing person’s case. The parents do not want to give up hope that their daughter might still be alive. The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, on the other hand, suspects the convicted German sex offender Christian B. of killing Madeleine. However, no charges have been brought so far. The presumption of innocence applies. Christian B. is now at large after serving a prison sentence for rape.