A ‘predatory monster’ who murdered two women and left a third for dead while on bail amid a campaign of sex attacks will die behind bars.
Simon Levy smothered grandmother Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and mother-of-four Sheryl Wilkins, 39, five months later.
He had already subjected a third woman to a brutal sex attack in January last year in the same car park where Ms Wilkins’ body was later found.
Following his convictions at the Old Bailey last week it emerged a series of blunders by police and prosecutors saw Levy freed on bail time and again as his attacks on women escalated to double murder.
Today, the 40-year-old was told he will never again be released.
Sentencing him, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: ‘You are someone who appears to have a morbid fascination with sex, rape and crime.
‘You ruthlessly exploited and took advantage of each of these three women.’
Earlier, Ms Wilkins’s sister Lindsey Hicks described how Levy had ‘destroyed our lives’.
She said: ‘There will never be enough words to express how I feel since losing my sister Sheryl.
On November 25, 2024 launched This Is Not Right, a campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
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‘You, Simon Levy, have destroyed our lives…
‘Sheryl was a beautiful soul who was cruelly taken away.
‘This last year has been the worst year of our lives and the pain you have put us through has been unbearable…
‘The toll this has taken on my mental health has been awful.’
‘I have been ripped apart…’
Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s daughter told the court she has been ’ripped apart’ by the loss of her mother.
Nazly Johana Fuenmayor Valencia said: ‘There’s an emptiness that can’t be filled.
‘I have been ripped apart… we will never be the same again.’
She described her mother as a ‘beautiful woman’, adding: ‘She was a truly special person who gave so much love to others. Her kindness, her smile and the love she shared so freely will stay with us forever.’
The grieving daughter added: ‘We have been living a nightmare we cannot wake up from. We don’t know why she was taken from us.
‘The rest of our lives will never be the same.’
She said: ‘My mum came to this country to give her children a better life and for safety. Instead her life was taken so cruelly.’
Levy’s prolific sexual offending spanned at least seven years between 2018 to 2025.
But detectives have urged any more survivors to come forward, amid concern the ‘dangerous’ predator could have been carrying out daily attacks for years.
Levy was previously jailed in 2021 for groping two women in the summer of 2018, one at Notting Hill Carnival and the other at a party in Camden.
He sexually assaulted a prison guard while behind bars in 2022 but was still released the following year, going on to sexually assault a woman on the Tube in October 2023 and allegedly rape another in May 2024, for which he was recalled to prison and released again in August that year.
Levy was arrested by the British Transport Police in November 2024 for four sexual assaults on the Tube, for which he has since been separately convicted.
But delays in organising an identification parade until the following April left him free to carry out the rape and first murder.
When they took details of his Oyster card, BTP officers did not realise that it had been stolen from a bus driver, meaning Levy had a free travel pass that he used on the day he murdered Ms Valencia-Trujillo.
Following her death, he was released on bail at two magistrates’ court hearings in May and June 2025, with the Crown Prosecution Service admitting that it had not opposed bail at the first hearing, and the prosecutor had not given the court all the relevant information for consideration at the second hearing.
There were another three crown court hearings that he failed to attend for various reasons, yet no arrest warrant was requested.
Less than two weeks after a hearing on August 11, he murdered Ms Wilkins.
In between the two murders, Levy attacked six more women on the Tube and Overground.
As a convicted sex offender, Levy was being monitored by the probation service and police but repeatedly lied to officers who visited him at the home he shared with his mother in March and July 2025.
He claimed he did not go out and watched YouTube and films instead and played on the fact he was partially sighted – Levy lost the sight in one eye in an attack in May 2024 – saying it made him unsteady on his feet.
The police watchdog – the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – said it had served a gross misconduct notice on a police constable and a misconduct notice on a detective sergeant.
It said while the actions of both officers were under investigation, it was not inevitable that disciplinary proceedings would follow.
Detective Chief Inspector Neil John, from Scotland Yard, said: ‘Simon Levy is a dangerous and predatory offender. His crimes were calculated, cruel and deeply disturbing.
‘Throughout the trial, he has shown complete disregard for the victims and victim-survivor, despite being fully aware of the lasting and devastating impact of his actions.’
The Met, BTP and Crown Prosecution Service have all admitted failings in how they dealt with Levy.
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.’
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