Words supplied by Centre for Women’s Justice
Simon Levy who was convicted last week for a violent rape and two murders and today Judge Mark Lucraft sentenced him 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 is only matched by the 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 – if it was needed – that our criminal justice system is in a state of collapse. Given the series of catastrophic failures by the Met Police on top of an appalling history of police failures including those involved in the Worboys case to the more recent scandals in relation to police perpetrators, Wayne Couzens, David Carrick and others, we must conclude that the Met Police are not fit for purpose. 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”, it is time to disband the Met Police and restructure and repurpose policing so that it can effectively tackle male violence and some semblance of trust and confidence can be restored.
“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.”
