Madeleine McCann family 'stalker' 'asked ChatGPT if she could be missing child'
Julia Wandelt, 24, asked ChatGPT if she could be Madeleine McCann, Leicester Crown Court heard, as the Polish national stands trial accused of stalking Kate and Gerry McCann
A Polish woman accused of stalking Madeleine McCann asked ChatGPT if she could be the missing three-year-old, a court has heard.
Jurors were told that the AI chatbot suggested to 24-year-old Julia Wandelt there was a “possibility” she could be Madeleine when she used it to compare her DNA to other genetic profiles - but also told her more evidence was needed to confirm it.
Leicester Crown Court heard that Wandelt asked the software to compare her DNA to a sample taken from the floor where Madeleine disappeared in Praia da Luz, Portugal. A forensic scientist previously told the court does not match Gerry McCann’s DNA profile.
In the course of the interactions, the chatbot suggested the DNA profiles were “consistent with a father-child relationship”, the court heard.
Prosecution barrister Michael Duck KC read interactions between Wandelt and the AI chatbot to the court on Tuesday afternoon. In one of the 76 chats stored on her phone, the court heard Wandelt asked: “Does it mean Julia Wandelt may be Madeleine McCann?”
Prosecutors alleged Wandelt peddled the myth she was the missing girl, who disappeared during a family holiday in 2007, while stalking Mr McCann and his wife Kate between June 2022 and February this year.
The court heard Wandelt, from Lubin in south-west Poland, asked questions of ChatGPT as if the second DNA sample belonged to Mr McCann, but the court previously heard it does not.
The chatbot replied to Wandelt: “The genetic evidence strongly supports that Gerry McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father as the data perfectly aligns to a parent-child relationship.”
When Wandelt asked whether she may be Madeleine, the jury heard the chatbot said: “If Gerry McCann is confirmed as Julia Wandelt’s biological father, it raises the possibility that Julia could be Madeleine McCann, but additional evidence such as a DNA test… is required to confirm this.”
The chatbot encouraged Wandelt to verify the origin of the DNA sample and its authenticity, the court heard.
Rosalyn Hammond, a DNA expert, previously told the court that test results “strongly favour the proposition Julia Wandelt is not the biological child of the person who left the floor DNA profile”. She had also told the court: “The floor profile does not match the profile of Gerry McCann. It’s a different profile.”
In the morning session, the court heard Wandelt had to be convinced by a missing persons charity that she was not three different girls who have disappeared.
Jurors at Leicester Crown Court were told that Wandelt, 24, “returned with a new story” weeks after being told by the charity, which is based in Poland, that she was not a child who disappeared in Germany.
Iwona Modliborska, who helped to set up the charity a decade ago, gave evidence via video-link assisted by a Polish interpreter on Tuesday and told the court Wandelt began sending messages to the organisation’s Facebook pages in January or February 2023.
Speaking about the first contact from Wandelt, Ms Modliborska said: “She wanted to find out about DNA tests, how it worked and how much it would cost.
“For some time she drew comparisons between herself and another girl from Germany, Inga Gehricke. She was asking if she could be that girl and as far as we were concerned we were asking her why she thought she might be that girl.
“Her biological parents did not want to give her access to her birth certificate and she claimed that when she asked questions about her early childhood she did not get any answers from them.”
Ms Modliborska told the court she did not believe Wandelt, from Lubin in south-west Poland, was Inga, adding: “We quickly made her stop believing in this because something did not agree with the description.
“It didn’t take long because very quickly we convinced her that she was wrong. Within weeks she returned with a new story – with Acacia Bishop. A few weeks later she wrote about Acacia Bishop to us. She sent photographs of herself and Acacia Bishop to compare.
“There were no similarities and there were no marks specifically that could really indicate it was her.” The court heard that Acacia was kidnapped in 2003. Ms Modliborska told the court Wandelt “1,000% could not be” Acacia, and the defendant “very quickly gave up” on her claim to be her.
She added: “That was the end of the conversation.” The witness told the jury that Wandelt then started messaging the charity claiming to be Madeleine with comparisons of their eyes and faces.
Ms Modliborska said the defendant told her that she thought she might have been kidnapped. She told the court: “Julia was told that she was a quiet girl and did not speak a lot… It was difficult to tell if she could speak Polish.”
The witness added: “I knew she was not similar to Madeleine. I tried to convince her again but she was well-prepared and it was not easy. I knew from the very start that it was rubbish. I tried to make her be aware that she was wrong. She did not accept that.”
Wandelt and her co-defendant, 61-year-old Karen Spragg, from Caerau, Cardiff, both deny one count of stalking.
The trial continues.