Growing up a Presbyterian in a townland outside Ahoghill, County Antrim, McCaughey was given the nickname "The Protestant Boy" which he carried into adulthood.

[citation needed] In the early 1970s, McCaughey was assigned to the RUC Special Patrol Group, a specialist "anti-terrorist" unit, based in Armagh.

McCaughey co-operated extensively with the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade and carried out a number of attacks on their behalf, along with SPG colleagues.

[6] In 1977, the leader of the UVF's Mid-Ulster brigade, Robin Jackson, was named in court as the gunman who shot Strathern in Ahoghill, County Antrim, for which McCaughey and John Weir were convicted.

[8][9] McCaughey shot and seriously injured a man who prevented him entering the pub, which he intended to spray with machine gun fire.

[11] McCaughey claimed that the Kingsmill massacre of 10 Protestant civilians the following day caused him to pass RUC intelligence to loyalist paramilitaries.

McCaughey claimed that many local RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) personnel were working with loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area in what became known as the Glenanne gang.

The Barron Enquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974 found a chain of ballistic history linking weapons and killings, to which McCaughey admitted involvement.

"[7] In addition Barron found that it was probable the guns were kept at a farm at Glenanne belonging to James Mitchell, an RUC reservist ... from which a group of paramilitaries and members of the security forces ... carried out the massacres at Dublin and Monaghan....

The chain was unbroken because the perpetrators of these attacks weren't caught, or investigations were haphazard, or charges were dropped, or light or suspended sentences were given.

"The Inquiry agrees with the view of An Garda Siochana that Weir's allegations regarding the Dublin and Monaghan bombings must be treated with the utmost seriousness.

[19] He became a prominent figure in the weekly picketing of Our Lady's Roman Catholic Church in Harryville, Ballymena, which was organised in protest against the re-routing of Orange Order marches.

[22] The Ulster Unionist Party MP Ken Maginnis had called for McCaughey to be returned to jail for his role in the Harryville protest.

In 2001, the Committee threatened to hold regular weekly street protests in a Roman Catholic part of Ballymena until Irish tricolours were removed.

When he was sent to prison the then RUC chief constable Jack Hermon opposed any pension for McCaughey but failed on a legal technicality.

"[19] Along with fellow PUP members in Ballymena in 2003, McCaughey took part in a campaign to stop racist attacks in the town.

[26] In April 2004, McCaughey attended an official dinner with President of Ireland Mary McAleese in Aras an Uachtarain, the Presidential residence in Dublin.

McCaughey declared that he intended "to invite the President to visit the staunchly Protestant Ballee and Harryville areas of Ballymena".

[14] McCaughey then withdrew the invitation because of McAleese's "Holocaust Day speech in which she compared Protestant prejudice towards Catholics to the Nazi hatred of Jews".

In 1980, after the Cullybackey branch of the Apprentice Boys unfurled a banner presented to them by McCaughey, his former wife voiced her opposition and announced her intention to change her name and those of her children by deed poll.

[10][31] The local Ballymena Times reported, "McCaughey apparently underwent a 'Road To Damascus' style conversion - supporting the peace process and leading a campaign against Neo Nazis".

Bunting's father was once held at gun point by McCaughey in 1971 due to the fact he was a Catholic and was forced to leave his job.