How police let a registered sex offender murder and attack women
BBC News · C · trust 38/100
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A convicted sex offender murdered two women, raped a third, and sexually assaulted others on public transport, after police, prosecutors and courts made a series of disastrous decisions that left him free to roam the streets.
A jury at the Old Bailey has now found Simon Levy guilty of the murders of Carmenza Valencia Trujillo, 54, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, in London last year - and also the violent rape of another woman in a car park.
Levy had been downgraded by the Metropolitan Police as a risk to women before he carried out the attacks.
The Met told the BBC it accepts the life of Sheryl Wilkins could have been saved. The force had apologised to her family, it said.
Levy, a jobless loner who lived with his mother, attacked the three women while on bail for sex assaults on trains in London, and went on to carry out further assaults on public transport.
Details of his crimes on public transport, plus the sexual assault of a prison officer while he was in jail for earlier offences, can now be reported. He was convicted of them in February.
We can also say that between late 2024 and summer 2025 he was freed on bail by police, and then the courts, multiple times - even after having been charged with the sex offences and having broken his bail conditions.
He was also being monitored and risk-managed by the Met Police throughout.
Levy had already been in prison for two sexual assaults, and Scotland Yard downgraded Levy's risk to women upon his release in 2024, a decision now under investigation by the police watchdog
The force did not class Carmenza's death in March 2025 as a murder, or pass the case to specialist homicide detectives, until after Levy had killed again
The Met took three years to investigate and charge Levy with the sexual assault of the prison officer, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) also acting too slowly
British Transport Police's (BTP) investigation into Levy's sexual assaults was beset by delays, meaning he was not charged for more than six months, despite being filmed carrying out an attack
The Met and BTP both gave Levy back a stolen travel card which let him travel without paying and commit crimes, including the first murder
There has been a "collective system failure" and it is a "tragedy beyond words", Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth from the Met told the BBC.
Det Ch Supt Pete Fulton, from BTP, said the delay in his force's enquiries on Levy "absolutely wasn't good enough" and was down to "incompetence" by two officers who have since been moved to other roles.
The CPS has apologised for "shortcomings" in its attempts to have Levy remanded in custody.
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The Met's decisions and actions in Levy's case were taken after the force said it had reformed in the wake of previous notorious cases - such as the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met officer, and the failure to detect and stop serial killer Stephen Port.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has repeatedly rejected the formal finding by Baroness Louise Casey that his force is institutionally sexist and misogynistic.
Simon Levy's case will lead to renewed scrutiny of that position.
"It didn't need to take all of those women for Simon Levy to be finally put into prison… the attacks could have been prevented," one of the 10 women assaulted on public transport by him told the BBC.
Learning about his other victims and the fact he had been on bail "was worse than even the physical assault", said the woman, one of the last to be attacked.
At the home where he lived with his mother, a computer was found full of notes about "my favourite sex positions" and "my sex records", as well as plastic bags stuffed with old newspaper articles about sexual abuse, rape and murder.
He was also interested in the misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate.
He first came to the attention of the Met in 2017 when a woman reported him for sexually assaulting her at an event in south London. The CPS ruled out charging him, a decision now viewed as a mistake.
In 2021, he received a three-year prison sentence for the sexual assault of two women, in separate attacks at public events in London in summer 2018.
Levy had put his hand down the two women's trousers or shorts, with one of the offences resulting in a charge of assault by penetration.
Despite describing the offences as "extremely serious", Judge Christopher Hehir refused to impose a Sexual Harm Prevention Order on Levy, which would have placed limits on the sex offender's activity upon release.
Such orders are used to enforce restrictions on who an offender can have contact with, as well as their internet use or travel, but the judge said the draft order was too broad.
He decided it was not necessary for such public protection, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court, seen by the BBC.
Police and prosecutors did not challenge the decision.
The judge said Levy would nevertheless be "subject indefinitely" to the monitoring requirements for convicted sex offenders, once released back into the community.
The Met was responsible for this monitoring, which involved police officers visiting his home and collecting intelligence on him.
But their monitoring would prove to be a failure.
When Levy was first released from prison on licence in 2023, he was classed as a high-risk sex offender. He was on licence and managed by multiple agencies including the Met and the Probation Service.
He was briefly returned to prison in May 2024 to finish his three-year sentence for his sex offending, after being accused of rape and therefore breaking his licence conditions. He was not charged with any further offence.
When he was finally released in August 2024, at the end of his sentence, the Met became solely responsible for risk managing Levy. The…
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