We all love to be gripped by a good series, and so, whilst we wait for the next season of Stranger Things, something even stranger appears to be going on in Britain's courtrooms.

Back on October 2nd - Yom Kippur, and the day of the "Manchester synagogue attack" - two courtroom dramas began, both of which were of considerable interest to me.

The first involved 20-year-old Alfie Franco, the young man charged with stabbing to death a 16-year-old boy in Huddersfield's town centre in April. I reside in Huddersfield, and this attack - which took place at 2pm on a busy shopping street - sent shockwaves through the local area.

Franco's case concluded on Friday, where he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum term of 23 years in prison.

You can imagine my surprise, then, that - when an actual murder trial manages to reach a conclusion in a week - a minor, non-violent "stalking" case that began on the same day is still very much ongoing.

I'm talking of course about the trial of Julia Wendell / Wandelt / Faustyna, the (allegedly) 24-year-old Polish woman who believes she is missing British toddler, Madeleine McCann, and who, on that basis, has made several attempts to make contact with the McCann family, including letters, Instagram messages, and sitting outside their home in a car. All the communications - although the McCanns have labelled them "creepy" and "disturbing" - have been non-abusive and non-threatening.

Despite that being the extent of Julia's "stalking", the British judiciary has decided this case deserves substantially more court time - and more media attention - than an actual murder trial.

I mean, an emotional young woman sent a few mildly inappropriate Instagram messages?! ZOMG! Hold the front pages, we're going to need all the nation's eyes on this nail-biting courtroom epic!

The case, which has already lasted seven days, is set to last another two weeks, and may even go on longer.

In case you're not up to speed on the specifics of this spurious soap opera, here is the (official) story so far...

Julia Wendell / Wandelt / Faustyna first emerged on the world stage two years ago, claiming to believe she was Madeleine McCann: that she had memories of being abducted as a toddler and trafficked, before being adopted by the couple who claim to be her parents.

Rather than dealing with these claims by doing a quick genetic test and comparing it to the McCanns data - and crucially, not revealing any details of this to the public until the results were in - the establishment instead elected to make Julia into a worldwide celebrity, giving her acres of press coverage and even sending her on top TV talk show, Dr Phil.

So, clearly, they wanted us all looking at this girl and knowing who she was. The establishment never makes people into celebrities by accident.

Julia subsequently organised a private DNA test, which purported to show she was "100% Polish" and therefore, couldn't be Madeleine, so she went away for a while... But then months later, she's back! Asserting to have realised the initial test she underwent was fraudulent, she sought out new experts who performed more genetic testing, and found she was in fact "part British and part Irish"... and that there was a strong genetic link to Gerry McCann, of the parent-child variety.

At this point, if any of this was real - with the world's media reporting a potential genetic link between Gerry McCann and Julia - you'd think Gerry would simply take ten minutes out of his day to do a paternity test and put the matter to bed for good, but nope. Old Gezza elects not to do this, but instead, to leave poor, desperate Julia in the dark, no clearer about who her parents really are, as the couple who raised her also refuse to do DNA testing.

So, since that time, Julia has continued to stick to her story that she is Madeleine, and, on this basis, has (rather understandably) directed communications towards the McCanns, begging them to take a DNA test, which she has offered to pay for (the state claims they "can't spend tax payer's money on it", despite the fact they have already spent millions on the case, and the test only costs about £60 - considerably less than lengthy court cases and prison sentences).

Following her alleged "stalking", Julia visited Britain again in February (to meet with a friend who believes her claims), and when she did, she was promptly arrested at the airport and thrown in jail, where she has remained, denied bail, ever since.

Making this more or less the least plausible, most shoddily scripted "courtroom drama" in history.

The Julia character is - as we are repeatedly shown - a deeply disturbed and very vulnerable young woman, with a history of childhood abuse, and yet she is thrown in chokey in a foreign country for nearly a year without trial, for a very minor, non-violent "crime"?

She is banged up for eight months for harassment, yet not one of the thousands of people who have openly accused the McCanns of murdering their child and made far more malicious comments than "I think you're my parents" are not?

Yeah.... No.

If any of this was real, the McCanns, as a grief-stricken family seeking their daughter, would take pity on young Julia, as a grief-stricken girl seeking her parents, and do the quick, simple test to put her mind at rest and bring the chapter to a close: "I'm sorry we're not your parents, here's the proof, but we really hope you find them".

Instead, they conspire to frame Julia as a master villain, they allow this highly vulnerable youngster to be locked up in a foreign country for nearly a year without trial, and then they participate in a lengthy and very high-profile court case in order to traumatise and publicly humiliate her further - it was widely reported Julia began screaming and sobbing hysterically whilst Kate was giving evidence.

All whilst refusing to do the one simple thing she's asked them to do which could have resolved the matter instantly from the start, and all whilst displaying no empathy or concern whatsoever for Julia's ordeal: she has endured a tragic life marred by severe childhood abuse, and instead of being met with sympathy and compassion from fellow trauma victims, she is treated like a dangerous criminal and thrown in prison.

Instead of working with authorities to get Julia the psychiatric help she needs (which any two-bit therapist could tell you would involve the DNA test to give her closure), the McCanns instead want to very publicly drag this deeply damaged young abuse victim through the courts and have her hurled back in prison.

This makes no sense whatsoever for a number of compelling reasons.

First of all, the McCanns assert to believe that, whilst Julia isn't Madeleine, the "real Madeleine" is still out there somewhere. So, imagine someone who plausibly could be the "real Madeleine" - someone of the right age and appearance and who has doubts about her true past - sees this high-profile trial hit the headlines, and observes the horrific ordeal Julia has had to endure at the hands of the press, the courts, and the McCanns themselves.

Is that going to compel the putative real Madeleine to come forward?

Or would it make her, or any sane person think, "I'm not subjecting myself to that hideous circus, I think I'll just stay as I am".

Putting Julia through such public hell, painting her as such a figure of ridicule and hate, and making it very plain they won't do DNA tests on demand, would have the obvious effect of putting any "real Madeleine" off ever making contact with the McCanns.

That's patently obvious.

So why on earth are they doing it?

"Oh, it's all part of the cover up, they won't do the DNA test because they know it's not her because they know they killed her!" insist "the parents did it and covered it up" brigade.

If they know it's not her, there's no harm in taking the test, is there? They could have taken the test at the start and resolved the matter immediately. We never even needed to know Julia's name, and there was no need for her to become a media star propelled to worldwide fame on top talk shows. The McCanns could have ruled it out as a possibility instantly.

But they didn't.

Another salient point to consider is that, if Julia Wendell, as a deeply disturbed and vulnerable individual, really had been locked up in a foreign jail for eight months, without having been convicted of any crime, wouldn't her family and friends have been raising merry hell the whole time? Wouldn't they have been desperately worried and doing everything possible to liberate this vulnerable youngster from such a terrifying, draconian punishment as jail in a foreign country for the rather minor alleged offence of sending some messages? Wouldn't social services and other agencies have become involved in regards to the safeguarding of a vulnerable adult?

But instead, we are to believe that Julia, a young woman with clear psychiatric problems and no criminal history, was chucked in jail and denied bail when arrested on minor, non-violent charges... whilst Jihad Al-Shamie (the Manchester synagogue "attacker"), a heavily built man with a string of criminal convictions, was granted it for rape.

Mm-hm.

The whole thing is an absolute farce, and the scriptwriting is offensively bad, as it always is in these fabricated operations, to let us know that this is theatre... Rather confirmed by the fact that the main star is an actress.

Julia Wandelt is listed on a prominent American casting website as a professional TV and film actress. She's from Arizona, not Poland. She is simply playing a part in a child abduction, courtroom drama.

So, in my view, are the McCanns, who have been acting in this tedious saga since 2007, when they flew out on location with a veteran 'Crimewatch' producer to film a staged construction of a "child abduction".

"I'm not here to enjoy myself," snapped a grumpy Gerry McCann at the airport, on his way to Portugal, rather seeming to confirm this was no family holiday, but a work trip.

Another way you can discern this is all theatre replete with a fake show trial is the total disregard shown for judicial impartiality and preserving the right of the accused to a fair trial.

Julia Wandelt has been splashed all over the papers for years, depicted as a deranged, delusional lunatic, and continues to be portrayed this way in endless, wall-to-wall coverage of the case.

This is in direct contravention of the law. In the UK, the Contempt of Court Act 1981, together with common law, governs media coverage of legal proceedings, whether criminal or civil. Under the Act, the media must not publish any material that may pose a substantial risk of serious prejudice to proceedings. For it to apply, proceedings must be active; this means, in criminal cases, from arrest or charge until verdict. 

This is even more so following the Leveson Inquiry, in which the practices of the police in releasing details of investigations to the press were examined. Lord Justice Leveson’s report into the culture, practices and ethics of the press (published 29 November 2012), recommended that “save in exceptional and clearly identified circumstances (for example, where there may be an immediate risk to the public), the names or identifying details of those who are arrested or suspected of a crime should not be released to the press or public.” 

So how does all this square with the blanket press coverage of Julia, who, being in prison, does not represent an immediate risk to anyone (not even the McCanns)?

It doesn't - unless and until you consider The Trial of Julia Wendell is nothing more than a staged, acted theatrical event, no more real than any Hollywood courtroom drama. Obviously, laws about press intrusion don't apply to movies, so that's how the press is able to give this "trial", and its star defendant, such a huge amount of coverage without breaking the law.

So what's the point of all this thrilling, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat action?

I think it's this: the "Madeleine McCann child abduction drama" is a long-running LARP - a live action role play - which was staged back in 2007 to fulfil a number of important political agendas. The first relates to promoting some sort of microchipping or other internal ID - "imagine if Julia could just have had her chip scanned and we'd have known if she was Maddie instantly, without all of this trauma and heartache. Any girl making such claims could just be scanned and we'd know immediately whether she was Maddie or not, without having to subject the poor McCanns to all this grief every time a new lunatic makes a delusional claim."

The second is to crack down on free speech and "conspiracy theories". I believe that "the parents did it and covered it up" theory was an intentionally planted red herring specifically designed to entice those of a conspiratorial disposition into believing - and widely sharing - what will turn out to be a false theory, when Madeleine eventually emerges alive and well. The reams of horrific abuse Kate and Gerry McCann have received over the years, mainly online, accusing them of killing her will be held up as proof of why free speech, and tolerance for conspiracy theories, has gone too far and it's time to clamp down on them for good. One step that may be taken in this regard is prohibiting people from opening social media accounts under fake names, which I strongly suspect is a move in the works.

Following what happened with the vindictive gossip site Tattle Life (where the "anonymous" site owner and some of the more prominent posters saw their true identities being revealed), it's likely that there's going to be a grand reveal of the true identities of some of the McCanns' more malicious trolls, as already happened with Brenda Leyland, a prolific composer of anti-McCann vitriol who killed herself when her true identity was exposed.

Many people have (likely entirely intentionally) been lulled into a false sense of security online, believing their real identity is totally obscured behind their fake name, but as the Tattle expose showed us, nothing's ever really anonymous online.

Part of the planned clampdown on free speech - and the furore surrounding Tattle has already set the stage for this - may not be to outright ban certain speech entirely, but to insist people can only open social media accounts under their real full names, and the public will be won around to the "necessity" of this change by being confronted with the sheer extent of libellous abuse against the innocent McCanns, the vast majority of it from anonymous accounts.

"We must have free speech, but we must also have accountability," some high-profile politician would demand, as high-profile people already have. "No innocent family can ever again suffer as the McCanns have. No more anonymous posting."

This, of course, would work hand in glove with a "digital ID" agenda (which wouldn't be called that, but would be that, just as we "got rid of poll tax" only to be landed with council tax instead).

So, looking at all the agenda items this case could be set to fulfil, it still looks entirely possible that Julia may yet be revealed as Madeleine, and that the long drawn out, high-profile drama of the trial is all about cementing her in the public consciousness, and solidifying her credentials as a true persecuted hero (all heroes must endure persecution) who has had to face and overcome enormous challenge and adversity to finally prove her claims.

Leading on from this, the McCanns being seen to publicly, and vociferously, deny Julia's claims is a necessary exercise to silence any critics who may have called "cover up" if Julia had just come out of nowhere, said she was Madeleine, the McCanns agreed, and they all lived happily ever after.

In that situation, the internet's conspiracy theorists would simply allege that Julia was "in on it" with the McCanns: that she was pretending to be Maddie, ratified by a fake DNA test, to enable the McCanns to literally get away with murder - that they were all in cahoots continuing the cover up, drafting in a fake Maddie to conceal the fact that the real one is dead.

However, the fact that the McCanns have very publicly denied that Julia is Maddie, to the extent they have even seen her go to prison for nearly a year, eviscerates any claim conspiracists might have to them "all being in on it together".

Indeed, at the current time, the McCanns profess to have the same opinion as most of the internet's conspiracists on the matter: that Julia is a delusional fantasist who needs to go away.

So if it's revealed Julia is actually Maddie, the McCanns will profess to be as shocked as everyone else, and won't be subject to allegations that it's all a fraudulent farce and that the three of them are all in it together.

Even though, in my opinion, they clearly are: everyone on the set of this epically long-running child abduction drama is in on it, and to be clear, there's no "cover up", because there is no real event requiring any such concealment.

In my view, no toddler was abducted or murdered. It was all staged, and "Madeleine" wasn't real. She was a fictional character, played by a child actor in Portugal (it's been postulated the girl identified as "Madeleine" was actually the daughter of another one of the couples - there were several female blonde toddlers in the group, who, one of the Praia de Luz gang tellingly remarked, "all looked the same").

That's why Kate and Gerry seemed so relaxed and breezy in the days after the "abduction"- going on jogs, laughing and smiling. Not because they'd killed their daughter (guilty people trying to cover up a major crime don't behave like that), but because they'd just successfully completed an on-location staging of a child abduction drama, for which they'd been paid handsomely, and were enjoying their newfound celebrity success as world stage stars.

A status they have managed to maintain for nearly twenty years, whilst none of us could name the parents of any other child who went missing nearly two decades ago.

The McCanns are household names, and the establishment simply does not bestow this level of celebrity on people, over such a long period of time, without very good reason.

It doesn't make minor, non-violent harassment trials into multi-week, high-profile court room epics without very good reason.

Will they tell us Julia is Madeleine, or will they not, who knows? What we do know is that not a single thing that has ever been reported about this "case", whether from the mainstream or alternative press, can be trusted to be true. Not necessarily because reporters are lying on purpose, but because they've been presented with false evidence -- theatre props, performative stunts - and they've taken it as real.

It seems to me that 'The Totally True Trial of Julia Wendell' is just the latest fabricated piece of fiction in the world's longest running, staged, scripted and acted, child abduction drama.

It's impossible to know just how many further "plot twists" they might have in store, but I do think the grand season finale is coming very soon.

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