The High Court Wednesday upheld the sentence of 40 years in prison and 20 lashes after dismissing a father's appeal for the offence of raping his 15-year-old daughter in two separate incidents in 2009 and 2011.

The 48-year-old appellant, who was unrepresented, sobbed while pleading for a lesser sentence against him for the two charges on the grounds that he had repented and regretted his actions.

However, the judge Datuk Mohamad Shariff Abu Samah, in dismissing the appeal, said the court took into account the public interest and raping one's own child as an evil act, behaving like an animal and traumatic to the victim.

On July 31 last year, the Sessions Court sentenced him to 20 years' jail with 10 lashes for each charge and ordered the sentences to run consecutively.

The appellant, who has since lost his left leg due to a nerve disease, pleaded guilty to the offence at a flat in Cheras, here in 2009, at 2am.

He also pleaded guilty to repeating the same offence at the same house in 2011, at 1am.

Mohamad Shariff said the appellant as head of the family should be fully responsible for maintaining the family and providing education to the children and preserve the dignity of his daughter.

Earlier, deputy public prosecutor Noor Svetlana Mohd Noor Nordin had asked the court to uphold the sentence, saying that it was apt.

"The accused repeatedly raped his own daughter, if he truly regretted his actions why did he still want to repeat it last year although it has not been recorded," she said, adding that the last incident was when the accused had lost a leg.