McGurk's Bar.Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 21 Spence respected some Irish republican paramilitaries, who he felt also lived as soldiers, and to this end he wrote a sympathetic letter to the widow of Official IRA leader Joe McCann after he was killed in 1972. Fugitive Spence was granted two days leave around in early July 1972 to attend the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth to Winston Churchill "Winkie" Rea. The latter had formally asked Spence for his daughter's hand in marriage during a prison visit. Met by two members of the Red Hand Commando upon his release, Spence was informed of the need for a restructuring within the UVF and told not to return to prison. He initially refused and went on to attend his daughter's wedding. Afterwards a plot was concocted where his nephew Frankie Curry, also a UVF member, would drive Spence back to jail but the car would be stopped and Spence "kidnapped". As arranged, the car in which Spence was a passenger was stopped in Springmartin and Spence was taken away by UVF members. He remained at large for four months and during that time even gave an interview to ITV's World in Action'' in which he called for the UVF to take an increased role in the Northern Ireland conflict against the Provisional IRA. At the same time, he distanced himself from any policy of random murders of Catholics. Spence also took on responsibility for the restructuring, returning the UVF to the same command structure and organisational base that Edward Carson had utilised for the original UVF, with brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. He also directed a significant restocking of the group's arsenal, with guns mostly taken from the security forces. Spence gave his permission for UVF brigadier Billy Hanna to establish the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade in Lurgan. His fugitive status earned him the short-lived nickname the "Orange Pimpernel". Spence was arrested along with around thirty other men at a UVF drinking club in Brennan Street; but after giving a false name, he was released. Spence's time on the outside came to an end on 4 November when he was captured by Colonel Derek Wilford of the Parachute Regiment, who identified Spence by tattoos on his hands. He was returned to Crumlin Road gaol soon afterwards, where he shared a cell with William "Plum" Smith, one of the Red Hand Commandos whom he had