'Serial predator' with previous convictions for sexual assault will not give evidence in murder and rape trial

By KRISTINA WEMYSS, GENERAL NEWS REPORTER Published: 16:17, 27 July 2026 | Updated: 16:18, 27 July 2026 A 'serial predator' accused of murdering two sex workers and raping another has decided not to give evidence in his own defence at trial. Simon Levy allegedly killed Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, and left the third woman for dead after assaulting her. However, a Home Office pathologist today questioned claims that the deaths could have been caused by strangulation. Levy’s barrister Siobhan Grey KC told the court that he had declined to give evidence.  The defence instead called pathologist Dr Brett Lockyer, who agreed that the cause of the two women’s deaths was unascertained. It comes after the surviving woman, 35, who cannot be named, last week told the Old Bailey she thought she was ‘going to die’ after Levy broke her collarbone, smothered and raped her at a car park in Tottenham, north London, last January. Two months later Ms Valencia-Trujillo’s body was found in a block of disused flats in Southwark, south-east London, on March 17.  A pipe smeared with Levy’s blood was next to her and his DNA was found on her body, the court heard. The Old Bailey heard that the partially blind defendant repeatedly sexually assaulted women on the London Underground between October 2023 and May 2025 Levy, 40, was arrested on April 1, and police allegedly discovered thousands of newspaper clippings on notorious killers and rapists at his home, including on black cab rapist John Worboys, paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and rapist Harvey Weinstein.  He also allegedly kept folders entitled 'my sex record' and documents on sexual positions, chat-up lines and prostitutes. A stack of stories cut out from newspapers focused on serial killers, child rapes and terror attacks like the Manchester Arena bombing. Jurors were also told that Levy watched clips on YouTube about controversial influencer Andrew Tate and Donald Trump. He spent time googling Tube maps and carried out multiple searches about sex including, 'my mum told me I should see a prostitute', it was said. However, he answered 'no comment' when asked about Ms Valencia-Trujillo's death, and was released as the cause was ‘unascertained'. Four months later Levy allegedly killed Ms Wilkins, 39, leaving her body behind a wall in the same car park where the alleged rape took place. She was found with 83 injuries to her face and head, upper body, arms and legs. The body of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, was found in a stairwell of a disused block of flats in Southwark, south-east London, in March last year Sheryl Wilkins, 39, who was found unresponsive in High Road, Tottenham, on August 24, 2025 Dr Lockyer told jurors that Ms Valencia-Trujillo's body was found face down -something which had ‘complicated’ matters, he said. But he found ‘no suggestion of strangulation’. Instead, he pointed towards the fact that blood tests revealed cocaine in her system. Cocaine and heroin markers were also found in Ms Wilkins’s blood. Dr Lockyer disputed ‘dragging injuries’, saying that abrasions on Ms Valencia-Trujillo's skin could have come from having sex on the rough floor of the car park. Jurors have been told that Levy - a 'predatory’ serial attacker - was convicted of 13 sexual offences between 2018 and 2025. And he already had two prior convictions before these - one from when he thrust his hand into a woman’s underwear at a party in Camden in July 2018, and another from when he attacked a woman at Notting Hill Carnival just a month later. While in prison at HMP Brixton, Levy also sexually assaulted a female officer, grabbing her bottom as she walked past on April 14, 2022.  Levy denies two murders, two charges of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent, and non-fatal suffocation. The trial continues. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.