Met chief questions why Simon Levy was freed after assaulting prison officer

Met Commissioner Challenges Prison Service Over Simon Levy’s Early Release

Wanderstayfinder.com – Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has raised serious concerns about the decision to free Simon Levy from custody despite the offender having sexually assaulted a female prison officer. The UK’s top police officer expressed genuine confusion over why Levy, who would later murder two women, was allowed to leave HMP Brixton in south London.

Whitehall officials have responded by stating that the criticism is somewhat misplaced, noting that the Prison Service lacked the legal authority to retain Levy in prison. The 40-year-old offender was serving on bail and under police surveillance when he killed Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025, followed by Sheryl Wilkins five months later. During this period, Levy also violently raped a third woman.

A Timeline of Failures

Rowley acknowledged that errors had been made in how the Metropolitan Police handled the Levy case, but firmly rejected claims that the force had failed to pursue charges for his first murder. This came after criticism from Labour MP Jess Phillips and others.

The commissioner specifically questioned why the Prison Service released Levy after his sexual assault on a female prison officer at HMP Brixton in April 2022. Metropolitan Police officers questioned Levy in June 2023, five months following his release from prison. However, Levy was not formally charged with the prison offence until October 2025—by which time he had assaulted thirteen additional women, resulting in two deaths.

That’s one of the things we’ve apologised for but of course there are two mistakes in that: you’ve got he was released on licence by the prison service, having sexually assaulted in prison one of its people, I don’t understand that decision either.

I’m prepared to come here and be accountable, we’ve got two officers … we’ve referred to be investigated by the independent office of police complaints, we take our accountability seriously.

The rest of the system is not doing that. The prison service should not have released somebody who’s indecently assaulting its staff.

Mina Smallman’s Criticism

Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were tragically killed in a north London park in 2020 by teenager Danyal Hussein, declared that Britain’s largest police force remains incapable of meaningful reform. Her criticism follows revelations that two police officers were imprisoned in 2021 after taking photographs of her daughters’ bodies and sharing the images in WhatsApp groups, referring to them as “dead birds.”

One of the women that were murdered, because she was a sex worker, she wasn’t taken seriously. They didn’t look into her murder until he murdered a mother of four, and then they joined the two cases together.

How ridiculous is that. Once again, the Met is deciding who matters. Both those women’s lives were important to their families, how dare they decide that they weren’t going to look into that case.

Smallman revealed that she had contacted Rowley after reading about the Levy case. She questioned the frequency of public apologies from the Met commissioner, suggesting that the organization had become too large for senior leadership to maintain hands-on understanding of daily operations.

After reading this case I sent a text message to Sir Mark and said: ‘How many times are you going to stand up publicly and apologise for failures in the Met?’ It becomes a joke.

She argued that the Metropolitan Police was incapable of change because of its sheer size. While acknowledging that Rowley genuinely wanted to reform the force, she suggested that the organization lacked direction. Smallman also highlighted financial constraints and systemic issues including inactivity, corruption, misogyny, and racism.

Government Response and Accountability

Crime and policing minister Sarah Jones previously described Levy as a monster and characterized the failures that permitted his continued freedom as “deeply concerning.” Jones indicated that the government would permit relevant institutions and the police watchdog to investigate what had gone wrong.

The fact that Levy was able to inflict such devastating harm after being freed by police and the courts is deeply concerning. It raises serious questions that require urgent answers.

Rowley denied that the Metropolitan Police had neglected its duties regarding Levy’s case. He stated that the inference that the Met had not attempted to prosecute Levy for his first murder was incorrect.

Levy, who received a whole-life sentence this week for his crimes, was also convicted earlier this year of sexually assaulting eleven other women. Ten of these assaults occurred on trains and the London underground between 2023 and 2025. The Prison Service has been approached for comment regarding the commissioner’s criticisms.

The case has sparked broader debate about institutional accountability and whether the Metropolitan Police’s size has become a barrier to effective reform. With two officers already referred to the independent office of police complaints, the investigation into systemic failures continues to unfold.