A Polish woman who made headlines by asserting she was the missing British toddler Madeleine McCann has been convicted of harassment in Leicestershire.

Julia Wandelt, who also goes by the names Julia Faustyna and Julia Wendell, was found not guilty of stalking charges related to Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing child, as reported by the BBC.

Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she disappeared in May 2007 while on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Her parents were dining at a nearby restaurant while Madeleine and her siblings slept in their hotel room, according to CrimeOnline.

Authorities suspect that Christian Brueckner, a convicted rapist, is responsible for Madeleine’s abduction and presumed murder. However, her remains have never been recovered, and Brueckner has not been formally charged in her case.

Wandelt, now 23, emerged in 2023 claiming to be the missing Madeleine McCann, which led to her facing stalking allegations earlier this year.

The judge sentenced Wandelt to six months in prison on the harassment charge and ordered her cell phones destroyed. As she has been in custody since February, she will likely be deported immediately after the proceedings.

The judge, Johannah Cutts, acknowledged Wandelt’s difficult childhood but said “that does not justifiy the way you behaved.”

“It has been confirmed in this case you are not Madeleine McCann. There was not proper or logical basis for this,” Cutts told the defendant. “What you should not have done is behave as you did to the McCanns. … Your constant pestering, badgering and eventually attendance at their home address on a dark evening in December was unwarranted. You had been properly warned to desist but did not. You continued to contact the McCanns and their friends and, worse still, their children.”

Cutts granted an indefinite restraining order barring Wandelt from contacting the McCanns, saying she posed a “significant risk” of harm to the family in the future.

The jury acquitted a Welsh woman, Karen Spragg, of stalking but granted a restraining order barring her from contacting the McCanns for five years.

“Mrs Spragg said it herself in interview, she saw Miss Wandelt as the victim and not the McCanns,” Cutts said. “She supported her while indulging in her conspiracy theories.”

Both Spragg and Wandelt are barred from entering Leicestershire, where the McCanns live, in the future.