I was quite brutal with it. Just so I had enough room for mole grips. Yep any m8 will do as long as they are long enough.

so turns out the torx bits just kept spinning in the bolt head

so i took the yoke to a friend who has a car mot test centre and they tried removing it to tell me the same thing.
the mechanic was really friendly though, he cut a different shape into the head of the bolt and got it out... mentioned it was not going to be re-use-able before he done it though and matched up some bolts they had lying around! but the head is very different im going to upload a picture of the bolts he gave me, i didnt have to tools to fit it so he even leant me the correct bit and asked me to return it on monday!