Director at the Specialist Crime Consulting Group, Simon Harding, has suggested that Madeleine McCann could still be alive.
Madeleine, who was three-years-old when she disappeared, went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal on the evening of May 3.
Since her disappearance in 2007, many searches have taken place in a bid to find answers to the case, which remains unsolved.
In a new BBC documentary for Panorama, named 'Prime Suspect: Who Took Madeleine McCann?, investigators claim that Portugese police flew from Lisbon to London to meet with the McCann family and apologise for how they handled the case of Madeleine.
Simon Harding says 'there doesn't seem to be anything concrete to suggest that she is dead'
GB News
Speaking to Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster on GB News, Simon Harding reacted to the latest claim by the BBC and stated that Kate and Gerry McCann "haven't commented" on the apology.
He revealed that Kate and Gerry more than likely they "would have come out and said" that an apology wasn't made, as opposed to "being quiet on it".
In the BBC documentary, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters claimed that he believes Madeleine McCann is "dead", and was "killed in Portugal".
The journalist asked Wolters whether the German authorities are aware of the location of the crime, to which he simply replied "maybe".
Reacting to the claims, Harding said: "I've led a number of homicide investigations in London and until you get actual proof that somebody is dead, of course you you shouldn't be thinking that way.
"You know, that's why they are still active on the case, because there doesn't seem to be anything concrete to suggest that she is dead.
"I know the the German police I think in 2020 suggested that their belief was that she was dead and this is the time that Bruckner became their key suspect.
Harding continued: "So I think in my opinion and I think the opinion of the Met Police, certainly the people that I know that work on that case before I retired would suggest that until there is something that tells them otherwise, then of course this is an active inquiry for somebody that's still missing."
Madeleine McCann went missing in the Algarve in Portugal in 2007
PA
Harding also shared his insight into the initial handling of the case by Portugese police, where in the first few months had wrongly claimed that Kate and Gerry McCann were involved in Madeleine's disappearance.
He highlighted: "The way that they were treated in the original inquiry, those prejudices and those judgements that were made about them to start with will have surely lost evidence, because you know you get tainted and you're blinkered in the way that you deal with something.
"And that's that's probably one of the biggest things, because the Met have come in and said 'what's left that we can do' and that's really the fundamental problem.
"That's why that apology should be there, because the way that you dealt with it in the very first start, the Portuguese police, has potentially lost some significant evidence and leads."
