Ibrahim Yousef (picture: BNPS)

A car wash worker stabbed his boss to death in an argument over £20 – then died in a crash as he fled the murder scene.

Valerijs Grigorjevs, 27, flew into a rage when Ibrahim Yousef refused to hand over wages he claimed to be owed.

He picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed Mr Yousef five times before smashing his head against the floor, an inquest heard.

Grigorjevs, a Latvian national, then jumped in Mr Yousef’s car and sped away.


Driving on the wrong side of the road, he veered into a lorry near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and died at the scene last October.



The hearing was told 42-year-old Mr Yousef, who ran the car wash and valeting business in Bournemouth, employed about 20 Eastern Europeans, paying them between £23 and £25 a day.

On October 10 he left a voicemail message on Grigorjevs’ phone asking why he had not turned up for work, police later discovered. That evening, a neighbour of Mr Yousef heard an argument in the flat above the car washing business.

She told the hearing: ‘I heard a lot of banging – it was like a thumping sound. I heard someone shouting, “Give me my money, give me my money”.

‘Then I heard £20 being mentioned. The banging was like someone had been banging their head against the floor.’

Ten hours later, Grigorjevs was killed when he ploughed head-on into an oncoming lorry.

A post mortem examination revealed he had taken a cocktail of heroin, cocaine, methodone and speed before the crash.

Police traced the Toyota Yaris he was driving back to Mr Yousef. They then discovered Mr Yousef dead and covered in blood on the floor of his flat.

Bournemouth coroner Sheriff Payne recorded a verdict that Mr Yousef had been unlawfully killed, while recording a narrative verdict for Grigorjevs.