Serial sex attacker Simon Levy jailed for life for murdering two women and raping a third

A serial sex attacker who had a "morbid fascination" with sex has been jailed for the rest of his life after he was found guilty of murdering two women and raping a third.

Simon Levy, 40, killed Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and 39-year-old Sheryl Wilkins five months later. Earlier that year, he raped a third woman in the same Tottenham car park where Wilkins was later found dead.

At the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC sentenced Levy to a whole life order, meaning he will never be released.

The sentence comes after police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) apologised over a series of disastrous decisions that left him free to roam the streets.

When Levy carried out the attacks, he was on bail and being monitored by the Met.

The police watchdog is currently examining how he was managed over a four-year period, from his first conviction in September 2021 for sexual assault up to his final arrest in September 2025.

Following Wednesday's sentencing, Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the handling of Levy's case was a "whole system failing".

During his trial, the court heard Levy suffocated both women in sexually motivated attacks, with Valencia-Trujillo found in a largely abandoned block of flats on the Aylesbury estate in south-east London, and Wilkins behind a car park wall near Tottenham High Road, north London.

The woman he raped had told the police where he lived but she was not formally interviewed until after Levy had killed.

Sentencing Levy, Lucraft said, external: "You are clearly someone who ruthlessly exploits others for your own personal sexual satisfaction".

Noting his disturbing internet history and collection of press cuttings about sexual crimes, Lucraft said Levy was "someone who appears to have a morbid fascination with sex, rape, and crime".

The judge added the offences reflected "a series of attacks by you upon vulnerable women".

Lucraft added he was "acutely aware that whole life terms are sentences that should be considered for rare cases".

But in this case "the starting point has to be a whole life order", he said, as the aggravating features outweighed any mitigating features and "this cannot be described in any way as a borderline case".

"You will be in prison for life and there will be a whole life order," the judge added.

The court heard victim impact statements from families of the murdered women and the woman he raped.

Lindsey Hicks, Wilkins' sister, addressed Levy directly, saying: "I hope you rot in prison for the rest of your life."

She added: "You, Simon Levy, have destroyed our lives and we will never get over this. Sheryl was a beautiful soul who you cruelly took away in an evil act of crime.

"We should have been growing old together like sisters do and be there to support each other.

"Instead, I'm having to realise that one day in the near future I will be older than my big sister."

She said the past year had been the "worst of our lives" and concluded her witness statement by telling him: "Know this, you lose."

Wilkins' mother, Mary Wilkins, said she takes a "small measure of comfort" that Levy is now locked up and will never be free again.

She added her daughter "ended your chances of hurting anyone else".

Levy had declined to give evidence during his trial but pleaded not guilty to the two murders, as well as two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent, and non-fatal suffocation against the surviving woman.

After sentencing, Sir Mark said the Met had apologised for its part.

"The concerning aspect for me is the fact he had been caught, he had been charged with offences," he said.

"He was repeatedly put by police before the courts seeking he be remanded in custody, saying this man is too dangerous to be on the streets, and between the CPS and the courts, they kept bailing him."

He added: "Time and time again, opportunities to stop him were missed."

"I am appalled by his crimes and the failures across multiple agencies that could have prevented him from harming, and ultimately killing, more women."

He said the "multi-agency failings need a multi-agency review" and that lessons should be learned and acted on.

"No woman or girl should be, or feel, unsafe in London," the mayor added.

In a letter to the director of public prosecution, Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, wrote: "Levy was free to do this partly because your organisation failed to make the case for this sexual predator to be put back behind bars, in spite of warnings from others."

Former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips told the BBC there had been a "litany of failures".

"Of course it was Levy who undertook that action, but the state could definitely have prevented it so it has to bear that responsibility," she told Radio 4.

The Labour MP added that "an idiot could have seen that [Levy was a risk]".