He organised fundraising in prison to help defend DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson in a court case, organising a sponsored run around the prison exercise yard. Ian Paisley wrote a letter of thanks to McCaughey in 1991, promising to try to help try to get his sentence shortened. Paisley wrote in his own handwriting: "'There is a door for you to get to the Secretary of State, a door which we were able to open'". The letter was made public by Paisley's opponents in the run-up to the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.