Simon Levy sentencing: Appalling failings across the criminal justice system
Simon Levy who was convicted last week for a violent rape and two murders was today sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft to a whole life order following his multiple sexual assaults and rapes of women which ultimately led to the brutal murders of two vulnerable women.
The horrendous catalogue of offending by Levy took place against an appalling catalogue of failures by the Met Police, British Transport Police, the CPS and the courts which left a dangerous serial offender free to repeatedly attack women.
Despite many of his victims courageously coming forward to report Levy who was on the sex offenders register, the police failed to conduct timely investigations, and when he was brought to court, the CPS failed to remand him in custody or issue a warrant when he failed to appear in court. Levy’s attacks escalated to the point where he violently raped a vulnerable woman in street prostitution, known as ‘ED’ leaving her for dead. When she was subsequently stopped by police on her way to hospital and disclosed the attack, they arrested her. Despite her account to the police, nothing was done to prevent the further escalation of attacks which ultimately resulted in the murder of two women, Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo and Sheryl Wilkins. Levy was arrested for the murder of Carmenza and interviewed, but he was released under investigation. Sheryl was killed in exactly the same spot as ‘ED’, who was earlier violently raped and provided an account to the police.
Levy was on the sex offenders register, but despite this and his continued offending, the Met Police actually downgraded his risk from high to medium. The case has been referred to the Independent Office of Police Complaints.
Harriet Wistrich, CEO of Centre for Women’s Justice and a lawyer who represented two of the victims of serial rapist taxi driver, John Worboys in an action against the Met police, stated:
“The catalogue of combined failures in this case provides terrifying evidence of the implications for women and girls of a criminal justice system on the brink, leaving them utterly unprotected. Given this series of catastrophic failures by the Met Police set against a history of appalling police failures from those in the Worboys case to the more recent scandals around police perpetrators including Wayne Couzens, David Carrick and others, it is clear that dangerous perpetrators have been able to act with impunity. Yes, we must have an independent inquiry and appropriate accountability for all the failings in this case, but given the history of past inquiries, the many recommendations for change made and statements of “lessons learned”, we demand that the Met Police demonstrate how it can effectively tackle male violence and restore some semblance of trust and confidence.
“Women report offenders because they want to stop it happening again, it is a hard and courageous act to undergo the reporting process and giving evidence, we owe it to those women and all women and girls who are subject to the pandemic of male violence against women to take radical action.”