Sex Offender Freed on Bail Multiple Times Killed Two Women. Met Police Admits Her Death Was Preventable.

A jury at the Old Bailey found Simon Levy, 40, guilty on Friday of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, along with the rape of a third woman and other charges, according to the BBC and the Guardian. Judge Mark Lucraft KC adjourned sentencing to Wednesday, August 12, and remanded Levy into custody, according to Perspective Media. He faces a mandatory life sentence.

Years of institutional failure across three agencies each had a chance to stop him.

The Timeline Nobody Wants to Own

Levy was first jailed for a sexual offense in 2021. While behind bars, he sexually assaulted a female prison officer, according to the Guardian. The Metropolitan Police took three years to investigate and charge him for that assault, with the CPS also acting too slowly, according to the BBC.

He was released from prison in February 2023, according to the Independent. Scotland Yard downgraded his risk level to women at that point, a decision now under investigation by the police watchdog, according to the BBC. That downgrade happened despite the assault on the prison guard.

Between 2023 and 2025, Levy carried out a string of sexual assaults on women using London's public transport, according to the Guardian. British Transport Police arrested him in November 2024 after an officer recognized him, but investigators said they lacked enough evidence to charge him, according to the Independent.

BTP officers took down his Oyster card details during that arrest but failed to notice it had been stolen from a bus driver, according to the Independent. That gave Levy free travel on Transport for London services, including the trip he used to reach the abandoned flats where he later killed Valencia-Trujillo. The Met and BTP both returned the stolen card to him, according to the BBC.

Delays in organizing an identification parade over the October 2024 assaults pushed his bail out to April 2025, according to the Independent. In that gap, Levy raped a woman in January 2025 and murdered Valencia-Trujillo in March. The surviving rape victim told police she knew where her attacker lived. She wasn't formally interviewed until after he had killed twice, according to Perspective Media.

The Met didn't classify Valencia-Trujillo's death as a murder or hand it to homicide detectives until after Levy killed again, according to the BBC. He murdered Sheryl Wilkins in August 2025, in the same Tottenham car park where he'd raped his earlier victim.

Who's Admitting What

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth of the Met told the BBC there had been a "collective system failure" and called it "a tragedy beyond words." He specifically said failures to remand Levy in custody at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court hearings in May and June 2025 left him free to kill a second time, according to Perspective Media. The Met told the BBC directly that Sheryl Wilkins' life could have been saved, and apologized to her family.

BTP Detective Chief Superintendent Pete Fulton told the BBC the delay in his force's investigation "absolutely wasn't good enough" and blamed "incompetence" by two officers, who have since been moved to other roles. Fulton was specific about it: the detective constable investigating the October 2024 assaults didn't set up the identification parade in time, and the supervising sergeant was "pretty passive" in that process, according to the Independent. Neither officer faces disciplinary action or a police watchdog investigation.

The CPS apologized for "shortcomings," admitting it failed to give three separate court hearings the full picture of the danger Levy posed, which is why he wasn't remanded in custody when he should have been, according to the Guardian.

The Couzens Comparison

The Independent reported that Fulton rejected any comparison to Wayne Couzens, the serving police officer whose earlier, lower-level offending was ignored before he murdered Sarah Everard. Fulton argued Levy's case involved a different pattern of institutional breakdown rather than officers looking away from red flags they should have caught. That's a specific claim from a specific official, not a settled conclusion, and it's worth reading Fulton's full explanation before accepting or rejecting it.

Accountability Mechanisms

The police watchdog is now examining the Met's 2024 decision to downgrade Levy's risk rating, according to the BBC. That's a real accountability mechanism with a real outcome pending, not just a promise.

What isn't happening: no disciplinary action or watchdog referral for the two BTP officers whose delays Fulton himself called incompetent. That's a gap between what officials say went wrong and what actually carries consequences.

Levy's crimes ran from at least 2018 through August 2025, according to Perspective Media, escalating from groping on trains to two murders while multiple agencies had him in their system the entire time. Sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday, August 12. The victims' families will be in court to hear it.