Woman who tried to warn police about Simon Levy says nightmare became ‘real life’

A woman attacked by double murderer Simon Levy said her nightmare became “real life” when she realised he was “still out preying on vulnerable women” years after she reported him.

In 2018, Laura was one of two women who reported being sexually assaulted by Levy that year after she met him on the way to Notting Hill Carnival.

He was jailed for both assaults in 2021 and continued to prey on women following his release in 2023 before his violence escalated to two murders as police repeatedly failed to stop him.

Earlier this year, Levy was convicted of 11 counts of sexual assault between 2022 and 2025, with 10 victims being young women using the Tube and London Overground and the 11th a prison officer he assaulted whilst behind bars.

Last week, Levy was found guilty of murdering grandmother Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and mother-of-four Sheryl Wilkins, 39, five months later, as well as raping a third woman in a brutal attack in January that year.

The timeline of his crimes reveals a string of errors where officials failed to stop a dangerous predator who was already a registered sex offender and was on bail as his attacks on women escalated to double murder.

The Met, BTP and Crown Prosecution Service have all admitted failings in how they dealt with Levy.

He will be sentenced on Wednesday.

In an interview with the BBC, Laura criticised the police’s handling of her case, saying she believed she was “doing the right thing” in reporting Levy, adding: “I thought I was doing it to protect other women from someone like that.”

“I feel really let down by the police. I feel really disappointed,” she added.

Laura told the BBC that when she tried to report the crime to police, she was turned away.

She claimed that two Metropolitan Police officers told her they “were busy with other, more urgent, things”.

A female officer eventually took her details, she told the broadcaster.

Levy was not arrested for the two attacks in 2018 until the following October, and was formally charged in July 2020.

Laura, who the BBC said has waived her right to anonymity, said her attacker is “evil”.

“My instincts were right,” she said.

“My instincts not to go and get on trains have always been right then because I just think to myself he’s been roaming loose.

“It’s almost like my nightmare is in real life.”

“What I would think about, dream about, nightmares about was actually happening,” she continued.

“He was actually still out preying on vulnerable women.”

Asked whether there needs to be a change in how the Government and society deals with violence against women and girls, Laura said: “They need to look at everything, all of it, because they could have prevented so many women from being hurt.

“They could have prevented two women from losing their lives.”

Laura said the impact of the attack had “never gone away completely” and it had changed her life “completely”.

She continued: “I was hysterical.

“All I remember is crying, and my friend was trying to make sense of what had gone on.

“There were a lot more things they could have done to make me feel supported.”

After last week’s conviction, a senior police officer who led the investigation into Levy urged any more survivors of the serial predator to come forward.

Following the verdict, 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.

The Metropolitan Police have been contacted for comment.

On Wednesday, Levy will return to the Old Bailey to be sentenced for the rape and murders.

Levy’s prolific sexual offending spanned the period between 2018 to 2025.

He was 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.

The murders of Ms Valencia-Trujillo and Ms Wilkins over eight months in 2025 were interspersed with sexual assaults on six women on the Tube and Overground.

As a convicted sex offender, Levy was being monitored by the probation service and police but repeatedly lied to officers who visited him at the home he shared with his mother, claiming he did not go out and watched YouTube and films instead.