Authors from Madeleine McCann documentary say they think she is still alive

"That should raise hope..."

The authors who feature in the new Madeleine McCann documentary have explained why they think the missing girl is still alive. Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, who appear in Netflix's new docu-series The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, have said that they think Madeleine was the victim of a "planned abduction." Speaking on Ireland AM today, the pair said the evidence points to a crime that involved taking Madeleine from the outset, meaning that it's far more likely that she wasn't simply murdered. "The evidence says that the apartment was being watched during that week," said Summers. "There was a man seen standing looking up at the apartment and that there was some sort of an operation going on. "Then we have the incidents of a man breaking in and interfering with little girls in the middle of the night. It seems to me that common sense would dictate that the information we have does suggest that it was a planned abduction." The author pointed to statistics from studies concerning similar cases in the States that show that a substantial number of missing children do actually return home. "40 percent of young children who disappear turn up dead one way or the other, but 56 percent of them are found alive," he said. "That should raise hope and does sustain the hope of the McCanns who are still looking for their little girl." Summers and Swan also said that they don't think parents Gerry and Kate McCann had anything to do with Madeleine's disappearance. They said the apparent evidence suggested by the dog alerts was not strong enough to imply that Madeleine had died in the apartment and was later transported elsewhere. Gerry and Kate were approached by Netflix to appear in the documentary but declined as they thought it could "hinder" the investigation.