He had sex with his teenage daughter and made her pregnant two years ago - and both of them did not know that they were related.

The unemployed 54-year-old Malaysian man, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 12 years' jail and given seven strokes of the cane for statutory rape, reported the New Straits Times.

The man and the girl's mother had lived together years ago and he had left her without realising she was pregnant, reported The Star.

He married another woman and had two children with her. They later divorced.

Two years ago, he returned to the victim's mother and they resumed living together but the woman did not tell him that the girl was his daughter.

The court heard that the victim, then 13, had asked her mother and the accused to sleep with her in her room at their flat in Selangor, in July 2010.

At about 1am that night, she woke up and saw the accused removing her underwear, but she remained quiet. They had sex.

The victim, now 16, gave birth to a baby girl in April last year.

While giving her statement in court on Tuesday, she said she had sex with the man willingly.

'I did not know'

"When it happened, I did not know he was my father and I was willing to have sex with him," the victim, who looked upset, said