// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Met chief accepts mistakes made over Simon Levy but defends investigation into murders
The head of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley has defended the force's investigation into double murderer Simon Levy.
Levy was on bail and being monitored by police when he murdered Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins five months later, as well as violently raping a third woman.
Sir Mark acknowledged mistakes over the force's handling of Levy, but said suggestions it had not tried to build a case over his first murder were "just not true", following criticism including from Labour MP Jess Phillips.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that detectives had done "serious" work but "didn't have enough evidence" for a charge.
The Met did not seek a charging decision from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over Valencia-Trujillo's murder until after Wilkins had been killed.
The police and CPS has apologised over a series of decisions that left the convicted sex offender free to attack the women.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is currently examining how Levy, 40, was managed over the four-year period from his first conviction in September 2021 for sexual assault up to his final arrest in September 2025.
At the Old Bailey on Wednesday, he was given a whole life prison sentence, meaning he will never be released.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Sir Mark - who on Wednesday called the case a "whole system failing" - said he had already apologised for what the Met had got wrong.
It emerged after Levy's conviction that the Met did not class Valencia-Trujillo's death in March 2025 as a murder, or pass the case to specialist homicide detectives, until after he had killed again.