The killers of two-year-old Jamie Bulger yesterday won injunctions protecting their new identities once they are released from secure accommodation, probably early this year.
Several media organisations have been granted leave to appeal against the decision, reached at the High Court in London.
Ms Denise Fergus, the mother of the murdered boy, said in a statement that she was "extremely disappointed" by the ruling. "No matter what corner I turn, I am faced with injustices . . . despite what the government says, the views of victims appear to count for nothing. If there were such a thing as a living hell, this is what my family and I live daily."
Explaining her decision to grant a request by lawyers for Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both now 18, for indefinite injunctions barring the media from publishing details of their new identities, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the Family Division, said their lives would be at risk if their whereabouts or identities became public knowledge.
Dame Elizabeth said the "unusually shocking and distressing" circumstances of their crimes had caused a widespread feeling of moral outrage.
However, the "exceptional circumstances" of the case, information she had received from the Home Office and press reports, convinced Dame Elizabeth that Venables and Thompson were "uniquely notorious and at serious risk of attacks from members of the public as well as from relatives and friends of the murdered child".