Forensic scientist Rosalind Hammond said a mouth swab was taken from imposter Julia Wandelt after she was arrested in February for allegedly harassing the family

Police have kept two DNA profiles of missing Madeleine McCann so they can prove her identity if they find her, a court has heard. One was obtained from a pillowcase in her bedroom in Rothley, Leics, days after she vanished on holiday in Portugal in 2007.

The other came from a neo-natal blood test taken shortly after she was born in 2003. A jury at Leicester Crown Court heard experts compared Madeleine’s DNA with that of Julia Wandelt who had repeatedly contacted the missing girl’s parents Kate and Gerry and twin siblings Sean and Amelie claiming to be her.

Forensic scientist Rosalind Hammond said a mouth swab was taken from Wandelt after she was arrested in February for allegedly harassing the family.

Missing Madeleine McCann(Image: PA)

Ms Hammond said she compared the DNA profiles of Madeleine and Wandelt. She told the jury: “The profiles from the two samples are different. Julia Wandelt cannot be Madeleine McCann.”

The scientist, who has been involved in Madeleine’s case since 2012, said there were ‘seven areas’ out of 32 in which Wandelt’s DNA matched Madeleine’s.

“They happen to have the same component designation,” she said.

But she said the full result ‘writes off the possibility that DNA is from the same person’.

Ms Hammond said she compared the DNA profiles of Wandelt and Kate and Gerry.

“The DNA profile of Julia Wandelt shows she is not the biological child of Kate and Gerry McCann. Neither is she the biological child of either one,” she told the court.

Asked about a profile comparison between Madeleine and her parents Ms Hammond said: “These results are exactly what I would expect to see if the DNA which has been attributed to Madeleine came from the biological child of Kate McCann and Gerry McCann.”

She said individual DNA results are the same whether profiles are obtained from blood, saliva or hair roots.

In a statement forensic officer Sarah Measures said she went to the McCanns’ home on May 14 2007 – 11 days after Madeleine’s disappearance – and recovered a ‘white embroidered pillowcase’ from the youngster’s bedroom. A DNA sample was taken from it.

The court heard Wandelt had claimed to have an almost 70% DNA match with a sample taken from where Madeleine disappeared in Portugal.

DNA proved Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine, jury told(Image: help-for-julia-wandelt/gogetfunding)

Wandelt, 24, and her pal Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, deny stalking the McCanns causing serious alarm or distress between June 2022 and February this year. The court has heard Wandelt is Polish, two years older than Madeleine would be now and had also claimed to be two other missing girls.

Police said she is among 12 people who have come forward claiming to be the youngster who vanished aged three from her family’s rented holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz while her parents dined with pals in a nearby tapas bar.

Det Chief Insp Mark Cranwell, who heads the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange probe into the Brit girl’s disappearance, has told the court all of them had been ruled out.

He said when he told Wandelt the result of the DNA comparison and asked her if she now agreed she was not Madeleine she replied: “Do you have paperwork?”

The detective said the decision to test DNA had ‘weighed heavily on my mind’.

Julia Wandelt’s co-accused Karen Spragg(Image: PA)

“My concerns were DNA would be confirmed of not being Madeleine and Julia would suggest we tampered with the sample,” he has told the jury. There’s a possibility she never accepts she is not Madeleine.”

The jury has heard Wandelt called and messaged Kate more than 60 times in a single day in April last year and on one occasion the mum received five texts within seven seconds.

Wandelt told her: “You are mummy. You know it’s me. You know I’m not crazy. I remember how you hugged me before the abduction happened. You said you loved me and will find me.”

Artists’ impression of Julia Wandelt (left) and Karen Spragg in court(Image: PA)

Kate had to wrestle her way into her house after Wandelt and Cragg turned up on her doorstep demanding a DNA test, the jury has heard. The former GP said Wandelt ‘called me mum’ and had been ‘pleading’ and ‘asking about DNA tests again’.

The two women left but the next day a letter was posted through the front door addressed to ‘Dear mum’ and signed ‘Lots of love, Madeleine x’.

In it Wandelt claimed she had ‘felt a close connection’ to Kate on the doorstep, had ‘memories’ and did not ‘understand why you don’t want to do a DNA test with me’.

Kate told the court she felt her home had been invaded and Wandelt referring to her as ‘mum’ had been ‘hard’.

“It was the thing I wanted the most – through all this pain – for Madeleine to be back and calling me ‘mum’,” she told the jury.