Mother of murdered sisters says Met police 'incapable of change' after Levy case

Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were killed in a north London park in 2020, has publicly accused the Metropolitan police of deciding which victims of violence against women deserve serious attention. Her own case drew national attention after two officers were jailed in 2021 for photographing her daughters' bodies and sharing the images in a WhatsApp group, referring to them as "dead birds".

Smallman has now spoken out about the case of Simon Levy, a 40-year-old sex offender who was able to kill two women after police failed to act properly. She said the first victim, a sex worker, was not taken seriously by police, and that no proper investigation began until after Levy killed a second victim, a mother of four — at which point the two cases were finally linked.

Sentencing and wider criticism

Levy was given a whole-life sentence this week for his crimes. Earlier this year he was also convicted of sexually assaulting 11 other women, 10 of whom were attacked on trains and the London underground between 2023 and 2025.

Smallman said that after reading about the Levy case, she contacted the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, asking how many more times he intended to publicly apologise for the force's failures. She argued the Met has grown too large for its leadership to maintain a real understanding of daily operations, and that the force is incapable of genuine reform due to inadequate funding, inactivity, corruption, misogyny and racism — even though she believes Rowley personally wants change.

The crime and policing minister, Sarah Jones, has previously called Levy a "monster" and said the failures that allowed him to remain free were deeply concerning, raising serious questions requiring urgent answers. The government has said it will let the relevant institutions and the police watchdog determine what went wrong.