BRAVE Kate McCann will return to Praia da Luz for a first visit since daughter Maddie was abducted, husband Gerry said yesterday.

The couple are planning the trip to the resort - where Maddie, then three, vanished from an apartment in May 2007 - before the end of the year.

Gerry, 41, said: "It is the last place she saw Madeleine and there is an emotional bond. There are people we would like to see and places Kate would like to return to.

"Now things are less intense she would like to do that in private. It is going to be a very emotional experience."

Gerry, speaking at a legal conference in Madrid about media coverage of the case,

has been back to Portugal's Praia da Luz since cops cleared the McCanns of any involvement in Maddie's disappearance.

Kate, 41, has always felt "too raw" to return. But she expressed a wish to go back during a trip to Portugal last month to see the pair's Lisbon-based lawyers.

She was yesterday at home in Rothley, Leics, with four-year-old twins Amelie and Sean. She has been feeling "very positive" since the Lisbon trip, Gerry revealed.

He added: "It made people realise the search for Madeleine was carrying on."

Gerry said he and Kate were boosted by last week's Channel 4 documentary on Jaycee Lee Duggard, the US girl found alive in August after being abducted 18 years ago.

He said: "It was distressing at times but the story was important for us because it gives hope.

"There is absolutely no evidence Madeleine has been seriously harmed. We can't give up looking for her." a.lazzeri@the-sun.co.uk