THE killers of toddler James Bulger were finally told last night they are to be freed as campaigners urged: Give them a chance.

The Parole Board has ruled that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, now aged 18, are no longer a danger to the public after spending eight years in secure accommodation for a crime which horrified the nation.

They will be freed within the next week.

Despite widespread public anger at their release, there were calls last night for the pair to be left in peace to start again without the fear of being hunted down by vigilantes.

Paul Cavadino, director of the charity Nacro, welcomed the decision to let Thompson and Venables rebuild their lives under a new identity.

"Though their crime was awful, eight years' detention is a heavy punishment for a child," he said.

"No good can come of the incessant demand to extract the last ounce of punishment out of two boys who committed a terrible crime when they were seriously disturbed children."

He was supported by Bobby Cummines, deputy chief executive of ex-offenders charity Unlock, who said: "God forbid we become a country where we cannot forgive children.

"This is not a Myra Hindley and Ian Brady case. These were children, and on that day three children's lives were lost."

Ian Sparks, chief executive of The Children's Society, said the rehabilitation of the two killers would be a mark of "our compassion and maturity as a society".

"We need to remember that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were children when they committed murder," he said.

However, the decision sparked outrage from the family of two-year-old James, who was abducted from a Bootle shopping centre in 1993 and whose battered body was later found dumped next to a railway line.

James's father, Ralph Bulger, said: "I feel angry, frustrated and completely let down by the system."

The boy's mother, Denise Fergus, said: "Thompson and Venables may think they have got off lightly and can hide. But I know different. I know, no matter where they go, someone out there is waiting."

But Thompson's solicitor, Dominic Lloyd, insisted the teenager had altered drastically.

"I do feel he has changed as a person. He has accepted responsibility for his part, he has shown great and real remorse over a long period of time in a genuine way."

Home Secretary David Blunkett, who announced the Parole Board decision to MPs, said that Venables and Thompson would be "subject to strict licence conditions and liable to immediate recall if there is any concern at any time about their risk". They will be on "life licences" including conditions never to contact, nor attempt to contact, any member of the Bulger family nor each other, he said.

They will also be banned from entering Merseyside without written consent.

The teenagers, whose crime shocked the world, have been granted an open-ended High Court injunction protecting their anonymity.

Family Division President Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said in the High Court earlier this year that the two had to be protected due to a "real possibility of serious physical harm and possible death from vengeful members of the public or from the Bulger family".

The length of Venables' and Thompson's detention has long been controversial - since former Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard ruled they should serve a minimum of 15 years.

But his bid to set the tariff was later overruled by the House of Lords and criticised by the European Court of Human Rights

Last October, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, effectively ended the boys' tariff when he ruled that it would not benefit them if they were now transfered to the "corrosive atmosphere" of a young offenders' institution.

Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe said the minimum sentences of 15 years imposed by Mr Howard would have been more appropriate.

But she added: "Given that the Lord Chief Justice has set a tariff of eight years, which means that the Parole Board is able to order their immediate release, anonymity is crucial and must be respected by the public and the media."

However, Mr Howard said: "I very much regret this decision.

"It may well be that the Parole Board had no alternative, but I think Lord Woolf was wrong to decide that eight years was sufficient time for Thompson and Venables to spend in custody in the light of the uniquely dreadful circumstances of their crime."