Serial sex attacker convicted of double murder after police lowered criminal's risk level

Serial sex attacker convicted of double murder after police lowered criminal's risk level Simon Levy was on bail when he murdered two women, five months apart Don't Miss Most Read A serial sex offender has been found guilty of murdering two people and raping another woman in London. Simon Levy, 40, of Beaufoy Road, Tottenham, north London, was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey today. The jobless sex offender conducted a spree of attacks on women from 2018 to 2025, killing two women within this period, as the police failed to stop him. He was convicted of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, five months apart last year. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say Levy, who is unemployed, was also found guilty of two counts of rape, assault occasioning grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent and non-fatal suffocation over a sex attack in January 2025. The victim of that brutal assault survived. Jurors were told by prosecutor Tom Little KC that the series of attacks were committed by a “predatory serial sexual attacker in a similar way”. Miss Valencia-Trujillo was found dead in a largely abandoned block of flats on the Aylesbury Estate in south east London in March last year. (Left to right) Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39 who were murdered at the hands of Levy |PA Miss Wilkins was discovered behind a car park wall in Tottenham five months later. Levy had suffocated both women in what was a sexually motivated attack. He also carried out the January rape in the same car park, in which the victim was left with a broken collarbone and unconscious. The Metropolitan Police, the British Transport Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have all admitted failures were made in dealing with the serial sex offender, who was on bail when he murdered both Miss Valencia-Trujillo and Miss Wilkins. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Levy was arrested on September 4 last year |PA Two police officers are under investigation for misconduct over the mishandling of Levy and his crimes, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said. The surviving victim had reported her being raped at the time and told the police she knew where the attacker lived, but was not formally interviewed by the force until after Levy had murdered two other women. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth, from the Met, said failures to remand Levy in custody at hearings at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court in May and June 2025 had left him free to kill a second time. He said: “There’s a collective system failure here, which has left Levy free to go on offending in this awful manner and left these victims at risk from his prolific offending, and that’s something which ourselves and colleagues across the criminal justice system will need to reflect on. “His behaviour is self-evidently that of a very prolific serial sexual predator who seeks his sexual gratification in a number of ways, whether it’s opportunistically offending against strangers on the Underground system, or whether it’s targeting sex workers in the most horrific and harrowing fashion. “Ultimately what we’re talking about here is a serial sexual predator who’s finally been brought to justice, but ultimately too late to help the victims of his tragic acts.”Members of the victims' families cried as the verdict was read out today after the jury deliberated for 13 hours. Levy, wearing sunglasses, gave no reaction in the court as he was found guilty of all charges against him. Mr Little told the jury the sexual predator targeted vulnerable women, all of whom carried out sex work in order to fund drug addictions. Levy had previously served time in prison, jailed in 2021 for groping two women during the summer of 2018 — one at Notting Hill Carnival and the other at a party in Camden. While in custody in 2022, he sexually assaulted a prison guard and was still freed the following year. He went on to sexually assault a woman on the Tube in October 2023 and was later accused of raping another woman in May 2024, resulting in his recall to prison before his release again in August that year. British Transport Police arrested Levy in November 2024 over four separate sexual assaults on the Tube, for which he was later convicted. However, delays in arranging an identification parade meant he remained free until the following April, during which time he went on to commit rape and his first murder. When officers recorded details of his Oyster card, they failed to realise it had been stolen from a bus driver, giving Levy free travel that he used on the day he killed Ms Valencia-Trujillo. Following her murder, he was granted bail at two separate magistrates' court hearings in May and June 2025. The CPS later admitted it had not opposed bail at the first hearing and the prosecutor failed to present the court with all relevant information at the second. Levy subsequently missed three further crown court hearings for various reasons, yet no warrant was issued for his arrest. Less than two weeks after one such hearing on August 11, he murdered Ms Wilkins. Between the two killings, Ms Valencia-Trujillo in March and Ms Wilkins in August, he also carried out sexual assaults on six further women across the Tube and Overground network. Levy will be sentenced on August 12 and will be remanded in custody until then.