Simon Levy, a serial sex offender who was left free to kill two women due to serious failures by police and prosecutors, has been handed a whole-life tariff meaning he will never be released from prison.
Levy was convicted of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins five months later. He was also found guilty of raping and attacking a 35-year-old woman in January 2025, who survived the ordeal and gave powerful testimony against him during the trial.
The whole-life order, handed down following his conviction on Friday, is the most severe sentence available in the UK courts. It means Levy will die behind bars with no possibility of parole.
What makes this case particularly disturbing is that both murders could have been prevented. Investigators and prosecutors made critical errors that allowed Levy to remain free despite already being known to authorities as a dangerous sex offender. Those failures have since come under intense scrutiny, with questions being asked about how a man with his history was not stopped before more lives were lost.
Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo was killed first, in March 2025. Sheryl Wilkins died five months later. Both women lost their lives while the system that should have protected them had already let them down.
The rape survivor, whose identity remains protected, played a crucial role in bringing Levy to justice. Her decision to come forward and face Levy in court was described as an act of enormous courage. Her testimony was central to the prosecution’s case and helped secure the convictions across all charges.
The case has prompted serious questions about how offenders with known histories of sexual violence are monitored and managed. Critics have pointed to the failures here as evidence that more needs to be done to ensure dangerous individuals are not simply allowed to slip through the cracks while potential victims remain completely unaware of the threat they face.
For the families of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo and Sheryl Wilkins, the whole-life sentence will do nothing to bring back the women they lost. But it does at least guarantee that Levy can never harm anyone else.
Authorities have faced calls to conduct a full independent review into exactly what went wrong and at what stage the errors were made. Campaigners working with victims of sexual violence say the case highlights systemic problems that go beyond individual mistakes and reflect deeper issues in how the justice system handles repeat sex offenders.
Levy now joins a small number of prisoners in England and Wales who have been deemed so dangerous that no minimum term was set at all. A whole-life tariff is reserved for only the most serious cases, typically involving multiple murders or crimes of exceptional brutality.