Why experts believe they'll never find Madeleine McCann’s body

Experts are now claiming we’ll likely never know what happened to Madeleine McCann because she may have been dumped in one of hundreds of ancient wells not far from where she disappeared.

The three-year-old girl vanished from her holiday apartment at The Ocean Club resort in Portugal 10 years ago, and the remote area around the resort has been described as the perfect place to hide a body.

“It’s almost impossible,” retired Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton told Channel Seven Sunday Night program.

“It would be impossible without specific information or intelligence which enabled you to focus a search in a particular area.

“It is a large area, with a very low population, of scrubland, of ancient wells. There are areas there where humans probably don’t go from one year to one decade even to the next. It would be really easy to secrete something there and be really confident that it wouldn’t be found.”

Forensics expert Professor Dave Barclay said the area is “the most hide-a-body-able place I’ve ever been in my life” as it's home to as many as 500 ancient wells.

“It might be solved if Madeleine’s body is found and there is evidence either on the body or in the location where the body is found that would point to somebody but otherwise, I don’t think it will ever be solved," he told the program.

The McCanns say they still cling to the hope that their daughter “might come out of the woodwork” like other children who have been abducted and held against their will for years.