KATE McCANN revealed how she prays for the people who took her daughter Madeleine.

The Liverpool-born GP also said her belief in God gave her an “inner strength” on the day Portuguese police made her a suspect in the little girl’s disappearance.

In a Mother’s Day interview, Mrs McCann, 42, a Roman Catholic, talked about how she has been helped by her faith since her daughter went missing in Portugal in May 2007.

She told Aled Jones, presenter of BBC Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday, her prayers were “a little bit more directed” than they were before Madeleine vanished.

She said: “I pray for lots of things now. Obviously I always pray for the family, obviously most of the prayers are centred on Madeleine.

“But I pray for the people who have taken Madeleine, the people who know what’s happened to Madeleine and the people around and related to the person who’s taken Madeleine.

“I pray for the police and the investigators, the people who are looking for her. And I pray for all the other children who are missing or have been exploited in some way.

“Because in some ways – it’s funny to say lucky, but we have been lucky – we’ve had a lot of support from the public, in particular people we don’t know. We’ve had incredible support.

“There’s many families out there whose children have gone missing and you don’t hear about it.” Madeleine was nearly four when vanished from her family’s holiday flat in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3, 2007 as her parents dined with friends nearby.

Mrs McCann recalled how her faith lifted her when detectives investigating her daughter’s disappearance named her an “arguido”, or formal suspect, in September 2007.