Sion Jenkins, the former deputy head teacher who was cleared of murdering his foster daughter, has revealed he is seeking up to £500,000 in compensation.
Mr Jenkins, 50, who now lives in Portsmouth, was acquitted of murdering 13-year-old Billie-Jo in Hastings, East Sussex, after a third trial in 2006.
He told BBC News he had made a claim to the government for the six years he spent in prison before being cleared.
Billie-Jo was found battered to death with an iron tent peg in February 1997.
She was found in a pool of blood on the patio of the family's large Victorian home in Lower Park Road.
Successful appeal
The former deputy head at all-boys William Parker School in Hastings, who was finally cleared of the murder in February 2006, always maintained his innocence during the two appeals and three trials.
He insisted Billie-Jo must have been killed by an intruder while he visited a DIY store.
In 1998 he was convicted at Lewes Crown Court of murdering her and jailed for life but had a retrial in 2005 after successfully appealing.
However, the jury failed to agree a verdict and a second retrial ended the same way in 2006, allowing him to walk free.
In a separate case earlier this month, Colin Stagg was handed a compensation award of £706,000 after he was falsely accused of murdering Rachel Nickell.
Sussex Police said nobody was available to comment directly on the action by Mr Jenkins.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said today it would not discuss individual applications.
He added new laws would limit compensation to a maximum of £500,000 where the applicant is in custody for less than 10 years and £1m for more than a decade.
He said: "Changes to the compensation scheme are being made to bring about a better balance between compensation paid to victims of crime and compensation paid following a miscarriage of justice."
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