Police and prosecution failures left a known and persistent sex offender free to murder two women in London, after key information about his past convictions and escalating risk was not put before courts considering whether he should remain on bail.
Simon Levy, 40, from Tottenham, north London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, five months later. He was also convicted of raping and attacking a third woman, aged 35, who survived an assault in January 2025.
The jury convicted Levy by an 11-1 majority of murdering Ms Valencia-Trujillo in a partly disused tower block on 17 March 2025. It returned unanimous verdicts on all other counts, including the murder of Ms Wilkins in a Tottenham car park on 24 August 2025. Levy, who wore dark glasses in court because of an eye injury, showed no visible reaction as the verdicts were delivered.
He faces the mandatory life sentence for murder, with the judge due to set the minimum term on Wednesday.
Reporting restrictions lifted after the end of the murder trial allow publication of a series of mistakes by the Crown Prosecution Service, the Metropolitan Police and British Transport Police. The failures occurred while Levy was being investigated for sexual assaults on women on trains, while he was on the sex offenders register, and while he was also a suspect in serious violent offences.
Levy was on bail as a suspect in Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s murder when he killed Ms Wilkins. Police had said they did not have sufficient evidence at that stage to charge him over the first killing.
Months before Ms Valencia-Trujillo was killed, British Transport Police had arrested Levy over sexual assaults on women travelling on trains in London. Charging was delayed after errors, including a delay in holding an identification procedure. While on bail, Levy carried out further attacks, taking the total number of train assaults to 10.
He was later charged with most of those offences, but remained at liberty. In February, a jury convicted him of the 10 sexual assaults on trains, including an attack on a daughter travelling with her mother, as well as a sexual assault on a female prison officer while he was serving an earlier sentence.
The CPS has admitted that relevant bail information was not given to courts at three hearings in May, June and August 2025. According to a source authorised to speak for the organisation, the omissions included failing to tell the court that Levy had been arrested over Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s murder. The source said there was also no record or mention of Levy’s previous sexual assault convictions, or that he was a suspect in a 2024 rape investigation.
In a statement, the CPS said: “We accept there was relevant information regarding bail that was not provided to the court when bail applications were being considered. Our actions fell short of the standards that victims, families and the public are entitled to expect.”
It added: “We could and should have taken a more robust approach to representations about bail.”
The CPS also accepted there was no evidence that a warrant was sought when Levy failed to attend three crown court hearings connected to the train attacks. For two hearings he claimed illness, and for another he said he had not been informed. His final failure to appear at crown court was on 11 August 2025. Less than two weeks later, he murdered Ms Wilkins.
A CPS source said individuals involved in the handling of the case had been disciplined.
British Transport Police investigated the assaults on the London Underground and rail network. Officers arrested Levy while he was travelling on a stolen Oyster card, but returned it to him because they did not realise it had been stolen. He later used the card to travel to south London, where he murdered Ms Valencia-Trujillo, and also carried out further sexual assaults on trains.
BTP said Levy’s charging in November 2024 was held up because of the delay in arranging the identification procedure after his arrest. His bail was extended during that period. While still free, he attacked and raped the woman who survived in January 2025 and later murdered Ms Valencia-Trujillo.
The force said it had not referred those errors to the police watchdog. It said one officer who delayed the identification procedure had been moved out of investigations, while a supervisor had been given words of advice.
BTP identified Levy as a suspect and charged him, but did not search his home. Peter Fulton, BTP’s head of crime, said: “There’s a fine line between going fishing and breaching someone’s human rights.” He said every woman who had reported being attacked by Levy on a train had seen him charged and convicted.
When the Metropolitan Police, which investigated the murders, later searched Levy’s home, officers found evidence relating to his attack on the prison officer.
The Met has also faced scrutiny over its supervision of Levy as a registered sex offender. The police watchdog has placed two Met officers under investigation over whether he was properly managed. A constable is under investigation for gross misconduct, meaning dismissal is possible, while a detective sergeant is under investigation for misconduct.
The Met had downgraded Levy’s risk level as a sex offender from high to medium in August 2024, partly because he was blind in one eye. Detectives believe the eye injury happened in an attack carried out in reprisal days after Levy is alleged to have raped a woman in north London in May 2024.
Kevin Southworth, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, described Levy as a “predatory monster”. He said Ms Wilkins would probably have been alive but for what he called “collective system failures”.
The case has renewed questions about how the criminal justice system deals with men who pose a known risk to women, after repeated pledges by police chiefs, prosecutors, courts and ministers to improve protection following previous scandals involving male violence.
Harriet Wistrich, of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said an independent inquiry was needed. Andrea Simon, London’s victims’ commissioner, said: “There are striking parallels with other cases where escalating risk was not acted upon, with devastating and preventable consequences.”
She added: “Critical opportunities to intervene were missed, despite him being a known violent offender.”
Sarah Jones, the crime and policing minister, described Levy as a monster and said the circumstances that allowed him to remain free were “deeply concerning”.
She said: “The fact that Levy was able to inflict such devastating harm after being freed by police and the courts is deeply concerning. It raises serious questions that require urgent answers.”
