Why was he free to kill? How shocking blunders left serial Tube sex attacker free to murder two women and rape a third

A string of police and court blunders left a serial Tube sex attacker free to kill twice and carry out multiple attacks on public transport in London.Simon Levy could face a whole life jail term after being found guilty of murdering two women and raping a third while on police bail.He has also been found guilty of violently raping another woman in January last year in the same car park where Ms Wilkins was found dead.Serial sex attacker Simon Levy, 40, has been found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering two women and raping a thirdPAThe timeline of his escalating crimes reveals successive blunders where officials failed to stop a dangerous predator who was already a registered sex offender.He was released from prison in February 2023 despite having sexually assaulted a prison guard while behind bars, and groped a woman on the Tube in October that year, but was not identified by police.Levy was accused of rape in May 2024 and recalled to prison until August that year, and two months later sexually assaulted three more women using public transport.He was arrested in the November when he was recognised by a BTP officer, but investigators did not have enough evidence to charge him.When they took down details of his Oyster card, BTP officers failed to realise that it had been stolen from a bus driver, meaning Levy had free travel on TfL services using the staff card, despite having been arrested for four sexual assaults on the Tube.Simon Levy attacked women on the Tube (British Transport Police/PA)PA WireDelays in organising an identification parade over the October 2024 sexual assaults meant his bail was extended until April 2025, leaving him free to commit a harrowing rape in January 2025 and the murder of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in the March.Read MoreHe used the stolen Oyster card to travel to the largely abandoned flats in south-east London where he killed Miss Valencia-Trujillo.The 40-year-old suffocated both his victims women in sexually motivated attacks, with Ms Valencia-Trujillo found in a largely abandoned block of flats on the Aylesbury estate in south-east London, and Ms Wilkins behind a car park wall near Tottenham High Road, north London. Levy was also found guilty of two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent and the non-fatal smothering of a third woman whose collarbone was broken during a brutal sex assault in January 2025 in the same carpark where Ms Wilkins was later found dead. BTP Detective Chief Superintendent Pete Fulton apologised for the delay in the identification parade, saying that the detective constable investigating the October sexual assaults was incompetent and their supervising sergeant ineffective.“The officer who was involved in one of the earlier arrests didn’t set up the ID parade in a timely manner,” he said.“The supervisor was pretty passive in that process as well, which led to probably a significant delay.”Both officers have been moved off investigative duties but will not face disciplinary action or investigation by the police watchdog.“We understand that Levy’s actions will have a lifelong impact on his victims, and we’re equally aware that more should have been done to prevent his offending before it could take place,” Mr Fulton said.Sheryl Wilkins, 39, was killed in High Road, Tottenham, on August 24 last year (Family handout/PA)PA Media“The delay that we had and the lack of investigative throughput, (there) is absolutely an apology for that,” he said.There were two key hearings at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court in May and June 2025, when BTP officers applied for Levy to be kept in custody but the court released him.The CPS has accepted that the prosecutor did not oppose bail at the first hearing, and did not give the court all the available information when considering bail at the second hearing, but said the errors were made “in the context of a criminal justice system under significant pressure”.Levy was bailed at both hearings despite the fact that he had been arrested on suspicion of one murder, one rape and multiple sexual assaults since he was first released from prison in February 2023.The woman he raped and strangled in January 2025 had also described him accurately to police and told them where he lived, but had been too unwell to be interviewed because she was withdrawing from drugs.Levy sexually assaulted six more women on the Tube between the March and May, and murdered Sheryl Wilkins in the August.Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo Family Handout/PA WireMetropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth said Miss Wilkins’ murder could have been prevented had he been kept in custody at one of those court appearances.He said: “The obvious corollary, if he had been remanded at that point, is that he would not have been able to go on to commit, at the very least, the murder of Sheryl Wilkins.”Levy, then living with his mother in Tottenham, was visited twice by police officers who monitor sex offenders, in March and July 2025, lying to them that he did not go out and stayed in watching YouTube and films instead.There were three crown court hearings in June, July and August when he failed to appear and judges approved his bail conditions continuing.At the first he was ill, the second he and his lawyer were not told was taking place, and the third he failed to appear and no warrant was issued for his arrest.The CPS said a defence lawyer claimed that Levy did not attend the August hearing because of a mental health issue, so no arrest warrant was requested.Bodyworn video dated 04/09/25 issued by Metropolitan Police showing the arrest of Simon LevyPAMr Southworth told the Press Association: “Tragically, Levy came to notice on a number of occasions, both to the Met Police and to the British Transport Police, and whilst there was a number of ongoing investigations into his prolific sexual offending, he was put before the courts twice on two occasions where remand was requested, and ultimately granted bail from those courts despite his ongoing and prolific offending.“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.”He added: “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.”Two Met officers are under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct over the way they dealt with Levy as a registered sex offender.The January rape victim was not interviewed about the attack until eight months later, after efforts by officers to contact her failed, and she was not well enough to be interviewed while in custody for another matter in the May.Mr Southworth said he is “confident” Met officers did all they could to interview her earlier, admitting that her evidence had been crucial for the Old Bailey trial.The daughter of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo outside the Old Bailey, central LondonPALisa Ramsarran, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS, said: “Our actions fell short of the standards that victims, families and the public are entitled to expect.“In particular, there were points where we could and should have taken a more robust approach to representations about bail, based on the information available.“We cannot know what decisions the courts would have made had different or stronger representations been advanced.“But we recognise our responsibility and we are sorry for the shortcomings we have identified.”Detectives have sifted through intelligence databases, contacted sex workers and approached coroners nationally to check if Levy had carried out other suspected sex attacks or murders, but so far have found no further crimes.However, they are appealing for any victims who have not yet come forward to contact police.Victims’ families joined a senior police officer outside court as he urged any more survivors of the “dangerous” serial sex offender to come forward. Levy’s crimes are “amongst the most harrowing we’ve seen in recent times”, Mr Southworth said.“This was, by any measure, an incredibly dangerous offender, and whilst there were multiple investigations, ultimately the collective system failure, and his bail from court, left him free to go on to offend in the most harrowing manner imaginable.”The police chief has apologised to Miss Wilkins’ family, and has offered to meet relatives of Miss Valencia-Trujillo, but this has not been taken up.The Met is carrying out an internal review of the case, and has already made improvements in sharing information about registered sex offenders with other forces, he said.Mr Fulton said the number of sexual offences reported to BTP has risen by 28% this year, and the force has invested more than £4 million in a 50-officer violence and intimidation against women and girls task force.