The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger predicted last night that the secret identities of killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson would be exposed if they are released.
Denise Fergus said she was tired of James' name being "dragged through every court in the land" and said she expected photographs of his killers to be posted on the Internet if they left custody.
She was speaking as Venables met a parole board yesterday, which could order his release from custody. Venables, who attended the hearing at a secret location, could be freed within days if the panel decides he is no longer a risk to the public.
Mrs Fergus, speaking through her spokesman Norman Brennan, said: "It doesn't matter how much the authorities spend trying to protect Venables and Thompson, it will be impossible for them to keep their identities a secret from girlfriends they meet in the future, or drinking friends. In a moment of weakness, they will want to tell someone what they have done.
"Those people will take the first opportunity to ensure that the killers are identified and their photographs are taken."
Yesterday, protestors launched a demonstration outside the Parole Board's London headquarters in a bid to delay the two killers' widely-expected release.
Demonstrator Roger Costello, from south London, said: "By letting the boys out now, it would be sending the wrong message out to other would-be murderers. They have committed a serious crime and ended up being mollycoddled.
"They have had a better education than if they hadn't committed a crime and now it looks like they are going to be given new identities and a new life with no expense spared."
Robert Thompson, Venables' partner in the February 1993 murder, will attend a separate hearing tomorrow and is also expected to be freed soon.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf effectively ended the boys' tariff - the minimum period they must spend in custody - last October. He ruled that it would not be beneficial for the boys to spend time in the "corrosive atmosphere" of an adult prison.
The teenagers were also granted an open-ended High Court injunction protecting their anonymity when they are freed from detention.
Mark Leech, chief executive of national ex-offenders' charity Unlock, is one of the few outsiders to have met Venables and Thompson since their conviction.
He said: ''The time has come for these two young men to be released.
''They have complied with everything the authorities have asked of them. They have tackled their offending behaviour and, having met them, there is no prospect in my view that they will re-offend.
''Nothing that anyone can do will bring James Bulger back. We should allow them now to get on with their lives.
''They didn't come across as evil in any sense.''
The two killers, who are both 19 in August, have spent their entire detention period in local authority-run secure accommodation. It is likely they will be released into a halfway house rather than given full freedom immediately.
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