JA rugby team to honour former player killed in knife attack

LONDON:

The Jamaican Rugby Football Union has vowed to commemorate the death of one its rising talents, brutally murdered during a stabbing in Central London last month.

Brendan McMillan, 27 years of age, was killed along with his father Terry McMillan, during a frenzied attack which resulted in four people being stabbed in Bermondsey, south east London on July 28. A man has since been charged with their murder.

The international rugby star who had recently toured with the “Crocs” in Mexico was recovering from an injury, at the time of the attack.

An anonymous witness to the incident, which took place at the business promises of Terry McMillan, said that he heard someone scream “somebody help”, before seeing a man covered in blood. The witness then saw “police chase a man with a taser”.

Speaking exclusively to The Weekly Gleaner Houghton Campbell the director of Jamaica Rugby Football Union said: “ I knew Brendan for five years and he was a really popular and well respected player, with so much potential.

“The team is not being macho about what has happened. The players went to Mexico together recently and toured. Understandably the squad is deeply saddened and shocked.

“I want the players to take leadership on how they wish to commemorate Brendan and his family. The team has a game against Norway coming up and I’ll be speaking with their coach about the possibility of playing the game in his name.”

Houghton Campbell recently visited Jamaica and held discussions with its prime minister, Dr Andrew Holness, about the sport’s development on the Caribbean island.

He said; “I met prime minister Holness and discussed how a lot of young males in Jamaica can benefit from playing rugby and the importance of developing a plot of land in Kingston, as a focus for the sport’s progression. He agreed.”

A resident who lives close to Terry McMillan’s property development company, Trademark Property Group, captured video footage of the alleged attacker “walking calmly down the street a few minutes before the stabbings.”

Terry McMillan left school with no formal educational qualifications and rose to become director of the Trademark Property Group specialising in property development and investment, according to the McMillan Family Trust. The Trust aims to transform the lives of young people in different communities.

The Trademark Property Group describes itself as one of the capital’s “most distinctive and pioneering property companies”. The company’s website states its aim is to “strive to be an innovative and forward-thinking company and implement this mindset in everything we do”.

Brendan worked as the head of estates at the family business. He also played for Blackheath Rugby, the oldest open rugby club in the world.

The Old Colfeians rugby club, another team for which Brendan played expressed appreciation for its former player, on its Instagram page: “Old Colfeians lost a member of our family, one of the kindest, funniest, most genuine people you could ever meet.

Brendan lit up every room he walked into, forever smiling, always cracking a joke and always full of life.”

Tributes were left at the scene, with one stating: “To our friend and family. You are a special person, loyal, loving and caring. You live as long as you are remembered. You will never be forgotten on or off the patch.”

Another man in his 30s who was stabbed during the incident was said to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Terry McMillan lived in Chislehurst with his wife Sheron, who was from Jamaica. Rosemary George, 59, who has worked as a cleaner for the family for the past 14 years, said Mr McMillan also had a daughter in her 30s and two other sons.