Serial sex attacker Simon Levy will spend the rest of his life in jail after murdering two women and raping a third, as ITV News Correspondent John Ray reports
Simon Levy has been handed a rare whole life order at the Old Bailey for the murder of two women and the violent rape of a third.
It means the serial sex attacker will spend the rest of his life behind bars with no opportunity of parole.
Delivering his sentence, His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC described Levy as someone who “ruthlessly exploits others for your own personal sexual satisfaction”.
Addressing the defendant at the Old Bailey, the judge said Levy was being sentenced for a series of attacks upon “vulnerable women”.
“You are clearly someone who ruthlessly exploits others for your own personal sexual satisfaction,” he said.
Judge Lucraft KC added: “You are someone who appears to have a morbid fascination with sex, rape and crime.”
Levy, 40, was found guilty of murdering grandmother Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and mother-of-four Sheryl Wilkins, 39, in August that year.
He suffocated both 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.
The killings came after he 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.
The surviving victim, who suffered a broken collarbone, told police at the time that she had been raped and knew where her attacker lived, but she was not formally interviewed until after Levy had killed twice.
The jury also found Levy guilty of two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent and the non-fatal smothering of the third woman.
Judge Lucraft sentenced Levy to two further life sentences, with minimum terms of 12 years, for the two rapes, to be served alongside the whole-life orders.
The judge said an offence of GBH warranted a four-year jail term, and it would have been a two-and-a-half year term for intentional smothering.
However, he imposed no separate penalty for those crimes because the actions had been taken into account when deciding the sentences for the rapes.
When Judge Mark Lucraft said the starting point of the sentence for Simon Levy had to be a whole-life order, a woman in the public gallery said “yes”.
During the murder trial, prosecutor Tom Little KC had said “predatory” Levy had targeted the three vulnerable women, all of whom carried out street sex work in order to fund drug addictions.
The Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police and Crown Prosecution Service have admitted failings in how they dealt with Levy, who was on bail as his attacks on women escalated to double murder.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it had served a gross misconduct notice on a Met police constable and a misconduct notice on a detective sergeant.
Watch: Double-murderer and serial sex attacker Simon Levy is sentenced at the Old Bailey
Scotland Yard has also issued a plea for any more survivors of sex attacks by Levy to come forward to police.
Levy’s prolific sexual offending spanned the period between 2018 to 2025.
He 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.
Earlier this year, he was convicted of 11 counts of sexual assault in a separate trial at Inner London Crown Court.
Levy was arrested by BTP in November 2024 for sexual assaults on the Tube, but delays in organising an identification parade until the following April left him free to carry out the rape and first murder.
Following Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s death, Levy was released on bail at two magistrates’ court hearings in May and June 2025.
The Crown Prosecution Service admitted 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.
Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s children described her as a “big character” and “full of life”.
She became a grandmother in 2024 and was said to be a “much-loved” member of the community with a love of salsa dancing.
Ms Wilkins’ family said she was a much-loved woman and was missed every day by those who knew her.
In a statement read to the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Ms Wilkins’ sister, Lindsey Hicks, told how Levy has “destroyed our lives”.
“There will never be enough words to express how I feel since losing my sister Sheryl,” she said. “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.”
She added: “This verdict is bittersweet – nothing will bring Sheryl back.”
The daughter of Ms Valencia-Trujillo told the court how she has been “ripped apart” by the loss of her mother.
“There’s an emptiness that can’t be filled,” Nazly Johana Fuenmayor Valencia told the court. “I have been ripped apart… we will never be the same again.
Describing her mother as a “beautiful woman”, she added: “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.”
“My mum came to this country to give her children a better life and for safety. Instead, her life was taken so cruelly.”
In a statement read on behalf of one of Levy’s victims, one woman whom he had raped said she thought she would die, and she wants to “try to forget this monster”.
In a statement read to the court by junior prosecutor Kerry Broome, the woman said she was trafficked into the UK in 2012 and turned to drugs.
“I feel like people have taken advantage of me all my life,” she said.
“I thought I would die… I want to try to forget this monster… This man is a parasite not worthy of any more of my words or time.”
Speaking outside the Old Bailey last week, 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-survivors, despite being fully aware of the lasting and devastating impact of his actions.”
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth, from the Met, 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.”
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