A long-running legal action in Peru against the Free Church Of Scotland has been settled.

The negligence case followed the death of two Peruvian students who were killed in a road accident in Inverness. They were pupils at Colegio San Andres in Lima, which belonged to the Free Church at the time.

The tragedy happened in 2006 when Gianmarco Peschiera, 14, and Carlos Gonzales, 15, were in a Honda 4 x 4 driven by Donald Macleod, 82, a Free Church member and former rector of Fortrose Academy.

He had a heart attack and the car veered off the carriageway and crashed into the back of a Tesco lorry. All three were killed.

The boys were in a group of 12 on a trip to Scotland jointly organised by the Colegio San Andres and the Free Church.

The action in Lima by the parents of Gianmarco was brought on the grounds of negligence on the part of Colegio San Andres, the Free Church Of Scotland, the school owners, and Donald Macaulay, former headmaster of Colegio San Andres.

No details of the sum being sued for were ever revealed but it was expected to be substantial, along with the legal costs, since the first hearing of the case was scheduled for December 2010.

A Free Church spokesman said: "We are pleased this long running legal process is now at an end."

The school was transferred to a local board last year.