A serial sex offender accused of killing two women and raping a third was released by police before committing the second murder, a court was told on Monday.Simon Levy, 40, is accused of killing the vulnerable women 'thinking that he would get away with it' after carrying out 13 sex attacks on women dating back to July 2018.The 'predatory serial offender' is said to have targeted three sex workers over eight months in London last year.Four months after Levy was arrested on suspicion of murder in April last year, the convicted sex offender was released and killed again, it was said.On Monday, the Old Bailey heard that the partially blind defendant had a 'large number of convictions for sexual offences upon women'.Prosecutor Tom Little, KC, told jurors that Levy had carried out 13 sex assaults between July 2018 and May 2025, including six attacks around the time of the first rape and murder.Levy is accused of raping a woman in January 2025, strangling her until she lost consciousness. The 35-year-old sex worker told police she thought she was going to die after Levy jumped on her, breaking her clavicle.She claimed he put his hands over her face, smothering her, while he put a finger down her throat so she could not make any noise, telling her: 'Shut up, be quiet, I got you.' Two months later Levy allegedly struck again. The body of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo was found in a stairwell of a disused block of flats in Southwark, south-east London, on March 17.