A church pastor is threatening legal action against a radio station which he claims misrepresented comments he allegedly made about Haitians and voodoo.

Pastor Gary Simons was lambasted on Thursday morning by callers to HOTT 107.5 who had heard him speak on ZBM television news the night before about the earthquake which has devastated Haiti.

The Cornerstone Bible Fellowship pastor went back on ZBM on Thursday night to demand an apology from HOTT for the criticism — but the radio station issued a press release yesterday morning saying "under no circumstances" would it issue one.

Mr. Simons and the three other pastors who run the church responded with this statement last night: "The leadership of Cornerstone Bible Fellowship has seen the press release. It contains inaccuracies and the matter has been referred to our attorneys."

A spokeswoman for the fellowship, which is based on Church Street, Hamilton, would not say what legal action was intended, nor give details of what Mr. Simons said on television. ZBM would not provide The Royal Gazette with a transcript or audio of his remarks yesterday.

HOTT's press release alleged that the pastor made comments associating voodoo with the human catastrophe in Haiti and said its listeners were "exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression" by complaining.

The station said some callers to Thursday's breakfast show — hosted by Government senator Thaao Dill — interpreted Mr. Simons' remarks on ZBM as insensitive.

"We do not know what Pastor Simons intended to communicate," said the radio station. "However, we can only conclude that what he did communicate had the impact of leaving a vocal portion of television viewers with the impression that his statements were insensitive."

HOTT co-owner R. Scott Pearman, from Inter-island Communications, told this newspaper that the church had no grounds to bring legal action against the radio station.

"If Pastor Simons believes that statements that he made on ZBM were misunderstood then he needs to go about and clarify that. If you have a PR issue, deal with the perceptions that people got off those statements."