Two Women Murdered After UK Police and CPS Failures Left Sex Offender Free Despite 'High Risk' Warning

Simon Levy was already known to police as a serious sex offender when a series of failures left him free to kill two women in London, despite warnings that his offending was escalating and that he posed a 'high risk of reoffending'.

The 40-year-old was convicted at the Old Bailey on Friday of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, in separate attacks in 2025. The case has since exposed a chain of errors involving the Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, with all three acknowledging failures connected to Levy.

Simon Levy Was Already Known to Authorities

Levy had served a prison sentence for a sexual offence in 2021 and sexually assaulted a female prison officer while behind bars. After his release, he went on to attack women on London trains between 2023 and 2025 and was also a suspect in a rape investigation.

By November 2024, British Transport Police had arrested him over a number of train attacks. CCTV had linked him to the assaults, but a delay in arranging an identification parade held up the charging process. His bail was extended while the process was delayed.

BTP has admitted that mistake. During the period when Levy remained on bail, he attacked and raped another woman and murdered Valencia-Trujillo.

There were other warning signs. In August 2024, the Metropolitan Police reduced Levy's classification as a registered sex offender from high risk to medium risk, partly because he was blind in one eye. Detectives believed the eye injury had been inflicted in retaliation for an alleged rape in May that year.

The police watchdog is now investigating two Met officers over whether Levy was properly supervised while on the sex offender register. One faces a gross misconduct investigation, while another is being investigated for misconduct.

By May 2025, police wanted Levy remanded in custody. They considered him a 'high risk of reoffending' and said his crimes were 'escalating'. Yet he remained free.

The Crown Prosecution Service has admitted that important information was not put before the court during bail hearings in May, June and August. According to a source authorised to speak for the CPS, prosecutors failed to provide information including Levy's arrest in connection with Valencia-Trujillo's murder, his previous sexual assault convictions and the fact that he was a suspect in a 2024 rape.

The CPS said its conduct 'fell short of the standards that victims, families and the public are entitled to expect'.

Two Women Were Killed as the System Failed To Act

Valencia-Trujillo was murdered on 17 March 2025 in a partly disused tower block. Levy was later convicted by an 11-1 majority of her murder.

He was still not in custody when Wilkins was killed.

Wilkins, 39, was murdered in a Tottenham car park on 24 August, just 13 days after Levy's final failure to attend a crown court hearing relating to the train assaults. The CPS accepted there was no evidence that a warrant had been sought after three missed hearings.

Levy had also continued offending while authorities were dealing with his earlier cases. Six further attacks occurred during the first five months of 2025, according to the reporting supplied.

The police response has raised another uncomfortable question. BTP officers arrested Levy while he was travelling on a stolen Oyster card, but returned it to him because they did not know it was stolen. He subsequently used the card to travel to south London, where he murdered Valencia-Trujillo and committed further sexual assaults.

BTP also never searched Levy's home after identifying and charging him. When the Met eventually searched the property during its murder investigation, officers found evidence connected to his earlier assault on a prison officer.

Peter Fulton, BTP's head of crime, defended the decision by saying there was 'a fine line between going fishing and breaching someone's human rights'. He said every woman who had reported Levy for attacking them on a train had seen him charged and convicted.

The CPS said people involved in the Levy case had been disciplined. The consequences, however, had already become irreversible.

A February trial established that Levy was responsible for 10 sexual assaults on trains, as well as the attack on the prison officer. He was also convicted of raping and attacking a 35-year-old woman in January 2025. She survived, but Valencia-Trujillo and Wilkins did not.

Kevin Southworth, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, described Levy as a 'predatory monster' and said Wilkins would probably have been alive without what he called 'collective system failures'.

Harriet Wistrich of the Centre for Women's Justice has called for an independent inquiry. Andrea Simon, London's victims' commissioner, said 'critical opportunities to intervene were missed' despite Levy being a known violent offender.

Sarah Jones, the crime and policing minister, said Levy had been able to cause 'devastating harm' after being freed by police and the courts, adding that the circumstances raised questions requiring 'urgent answers'.

Levy was unanimously convicted of Wilkins' murder and faces a mandatory life sentence. He is due to be sentenced on Wednesday.