"me and my husband are pretty quiet - it seems that is enough to draw attention to yourself to be labelled as loners !! we don't go out that much - see how easily people can make you sound weird ?"
I think that would likely apply to DH and myself as well! DH works odd hours and people who do a normal 9 to 5 would probably never see him come or go.
" a foot long pole ? that's not very long is it ? "
In contrast though, I think that this is different.
The article (at least in The Times) reported:
"One neighbour who had seen the video said: “It looked like a wooden stick or an iron bar, about a foot long"
So, it may well have been an iron bar. A foot long iron bar?
A typical car wheel brace (for undoing the wheel nuts on a car wheel when you need to change a tyre) is about a foot long.
I'm sure that a young man could cause a lot of injuries to an elderly woman with a car wheel brace.
Although, we should wait for the police to say more.