CPS director apologises for failings in case of rapist-murderer Simon Levy

The director of the Crown Prosecution Service has apologised and vowed to increase staff numbers after conceding that the court deciding whether to release Simon Levy on bail should have known the serial sex offender was being investigated for rape and murder.Levy, 40, was this week given a rare whole-life sentence for the murders of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo and Sheryl Wilkins, and the rape of another woman.He was on bail and being monitored by police when he murdered Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and Wilkins five months later. Wilkins was murdered the day before what would have been her 40th birthday. She was found with 83 injuries or marks on her body.In an interview with LBC on Thursday, the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, said his agency should have told the court it was investigating Levy for rape and murder before he was released on bail.“I absolutely accept that the court should have had that information, and I’m very sorry indeed,” he said.Parkinson said that Levy’s two bail hearings, which followed the murder of Valencia-Trujillo, were both held on a Saturday, when prosecutors were dealing with “an incredibly busy list”.Simon Levy was given a whole-life sentence for the murders. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PAThe details of the ongoing investigations into Levy were in the system but prosecutors were not “aware of that information” and did not present it to the court, he said.“I don’t know whether that would have made a difference, but the point is the courts should have had it,” Parkinson said.Asked whether he thought Wilkins might still be alive if Levy had been denied bail, Parkinson said: “Clearly, if he had been remanded in custody, then he would not have had the opportunity to commit the crime that he did.”Parkinson said the service was providing extra resources to prosecutors to “minimise the risk” of such a case being repeated. Offer letters would be sent out this week to employ more staff, he said.After the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, questioned why Levy was released from jail despite sexually assaulting a female prison officer, Parkinson said the public did not want to see different parts of the criminal justice system “taking shots at each other”.“I think what they want to know is that lessons have been learned and that action is being taken,” he said.Levy was not charged with the prison assault until October 2025, by which time he had attacked 13 more women – killing two of them.