Zoe Progl

Zoe Progl (28 March 1928 – before 2021) was a British criminal. Born into a poor family and with a father who was often drunk and in trouble with the police, Progl began stealing to feed herself from the age of six. She later progressed to shoplifting and worked in nightclubs where she fraternised with criminals. Progl married an American soldier at the age of 18, but soon left him and began carrying out burglaries with a new partner. Whilst three months pregnant, she was sentenced to three years detention at Aylesbury Borstal. After her release, she had an affair with Tommy "Scarface" Smithson, a London gangster whose gang included the Kray twins. She had a second child with Smithson before he left her.

Progl specialised in burglaries, shoplifting, and "jump ups", thefts of loaded lorries from the dockside. On one occasion, she stole £250,000 of fur clothing. She received a 3-month prison sentence for the robbery of an American soldier, and a 15-month sentence for the theft of a safe from a solicitor. In the mid 1950s, she became involved with drugs, and on one occasion attempted suicide. In Clapham, Progl operated a shop selling stolen goods from a garage and acted as getaway driver in a prison break from Wormwood Scrubs.

Progl received another prison sentence for burglary, and was sent to HM Prison Holloway in 1960. Before entering she had planned her escape and, on 24 July, became the first person to escape over the wall from the prison. She was recaptured 40 days later, and sentenced to an additional 18 months inside. During this period of imprisonment, she determined to reform and wrote an autobiography Woman of the Underworld . After her release, she married again, but left her husband after suffering domestic abuse. She later returned to crime, and received a further prison sentence.

Early life Progl was born Zoie Tyldesley in Lambeth Hospital, South London, on 28 March 1928. She was the third child of Majorie Gainey and Arthur Tyldesley, a lorry driver. She had two older brothers, one of whom, a merchant seaman, was lost at sea in 1939 after his vessel was torpedoed by a German submarine. As a child, Progl lived with her family in a run-down basement flat in a Limehouse slum. Her father was often drunk, and the flat was frequently visited by the police. In September 1940 Progl was evacuated to the countryside. She was hosted by a rich family who fed and clothed her well. Upon her return to London she determined to become rich by any means possible. At the age of 18, Progl married Joe Progl, a master sergeant in the United States Army. She soon grew tired of life as an army housewife and left Progl. She became the partner of Johnny Gelley, a Canadian criminal. Progl accompanied Gelley and a friend to a mansion in Potters Bar, and kept watch from a stolen Jaguar while they stole £7,000 of fur clothing from the house. Progl afterwards accompanied Gelley in a raid on a Surrey sub-post office, getting away with £12,000 in cash and savings certificates. When he was released, he found Progl and their son, Paul, living in "a house full of prostitutes".

Progl continued her criminal activities including burglary, robbery, and shoplifting, and would steal objects to order. One of her techniques was to affect a posh accent in jewellers and ask to see their most expensive rings. An accomplice would then enter and distract the shop assistant by asking to see watchstraps, while Progl stuck a ring below the counter with chewing gum. If the assistant questioned Progl she would flounce out stating that she had "never been so insulted in my life". The ring would then be retrieved by the accomplice. Progl also carried out "jump ups", the theft of loaded lorries from the London Docks, with an accomplice named Ches. Progl then moved to Clapham where she gave birth to a daughter, Tracy, in January 1957. Returning to jump-up heists, she rented a garage to store and sell her stolen goods, which became known to criminals as "The Shop". Progl was nicknamed "Blonde Mickie" by the newspapers.

Progl was captured in 1960 after leaving a fingerprint at the scene of a burglary in Brighton, during which she had stolen jewellery. Progl normally wore gloves on her burglaries, but had left the print after a strip of celluloid, that she used to open locked doors, cut her gloves. She was arrested at her Clapham flat by the Flying Squad. Whilst on bail awaiting trial, Progl visited Holloway, where she assumed she would soon be returning, with her boyfriend (and a poodle, to avoid suspicion) to plan a later escape. She seems to have decided to try to become the first person to escape from the prison rather than simply skipping her bail. Progl discovered a door in the wall of the prison for which she had keys made, but was unable to open a second door further inside. She instead decided she would get out by climbing the wall, and identified a nearby Second World War bombsite as an ideal place to hide a ladder after the escape. Progl was convicted at trial and sentenced to prison for 2 years and 6 months, for which she would indeed be sent to Holloway for the fourth time.

In an attempt to evade recapture, Progl dyed her blonde hair red and went with Tracy to a caravan site near Paignton, Devon, the same site that Parsons had fled to after his escape. After two weeks in Devon Progl returned to London.