Robert Smith, pictured, was convicted of abusing 21 children in 2006 and was given a 20-year sentence but is now awaiting release

A paedophile who was told by a judge he deserved to die in jail is to be released early into the same county where he raped and abused 21 children as young as four.

Robert Smith will be out on the streets of Yorkshire before Christmas, despite the judge who sentenced him saying his crimes were the worst of their type he had ever encountered.

Smith's horrified victims claim the Ministry of Justice has put the rights of the rapist, who is moving to Leeds, first. He will not even be required to wear a tag.

One victim said: 'It's a nightmare that's never going to end. It will only end when he's dead and buried.'

Sentencing Smith in 2006, Judge Paul Hoffman told him: 'If the sentence that is passed results in you dying in prison, that's no more than you deserve.' The judge said he had searched legal textbooks but found no other case 'as bad as this one,' telling York Crown Court: 'Yours is the worst case of it's type that I have ever encountered in nearly 42 years of criminal practice. It stands apart in its sheer scale of wickedness and your callous disregard for your victims' feelings.

'It is a case of prolonged and insatiable depravity. For 30 years you abused the trust placed in you by parents and children alike, using them as sexual playthings.'

After his release Smith will wear a voluntary GPS tag, sign the sex offenders register and adhere to a curfew.

In 2006 Smith, now 76, pleaded guilty to 42 sex offences against both boys and girls that began in 1954, receiving a 20-year sentence. But these were just sample offences because many victims could not remember in detail the many occasions he abused them.

Seven of his child victims came from a single family of nine children. In a separate series of attacks two generations of a family were abused by him because the mother, raped as a child, was too terrified to confront him. In all nearly 40 children were thought to be victims of his abuse.

He carried out many of his violent attacks in a shed near Scarborough pier, often holding a knife to the child's neck as he raped them.

Smith repeatedly escaped justice. The first complaints against him came in 1987 but police just cautioned him. He was jailed for two years in 1993 for indecent assault and gross indecency.

He was only arrested again in 2005 when a man who had been abused as a young child contacted police after discovering the paedophile was living near a school. Now one victim, representing several others, has come forward to describe her fury that probation services are releasing Smith back into his home county to live just an hour from his victims.

She said: 'Seeing him would be the most horrendous thing that could ever happen. If we were out in town and we saw him, it's just devastating, it's frightening that that could happen.

'The majority of his victims live in the local town. The victims are distraught, they won't go out if it happens.'

Victims had previously been told each time Smith was up for parole, but last month they received a phone call without warning telling them his release had been rubber-stamped, which was confirmed last week.

'We don't want him to come back to Scarborough or York,' the victim said. 'We can put in our recommendations but the probation officers can say, 'no he's local he can come back'. It's disgusting that they are not listening to us.'

She added that victims are terrified he will find them, or that he will continue to abuse local children. 'He will never change even though he's 76 and he's in a wheelchair. He will do it again. He's never ever shown any remorse. He did it systematically for years, he is a brute.

'We all wanted him to die in prison. He's an evil man. I want people to hear our voices because the Victim Support just aren't [helping]. Thirty-six or 37 people objected to him coming out. They have got to listen. We have to live with this for the rest of our lives. You get these do-gooders who say it's his human right, but men like this don't have human rights.'

Victim Support Leeds told victims last week: 'I can now tell you that the offender will be released before Christmas. He will be escorted from the prison to approved premises (probation hostel) by the police. All the licence conditions are in place.'

The Ministry of Justice said they do not comment on individual prisoners.

A spokesman added: 'Public protection is our priority. Sex offenders on licence are subject to a strict set of conditions, which may include preventing them from contacting their victims and banning them from entering certain areas, as well as being subject to the sex offenders register.

'If they fail to comply with these conditions they can be returned to prison.'