Stephen Robins, 42, yesterday failed in his bid to overturn the sentence handed down at Corowa Local Court last month.

In dismissing his appeal, Judge Martin Blackmore said Robins gave no acceptable explanation for the offence and a four-month term of imprisonment was fitting.

“I may not have been so lenient,” he told Robins, representing himself in the District Court appeal in Albury.

“It is an incredibly serious offence to have a firearm loaded in the house and as a result you nearly killed your own daughter.”

Robins pleaded guilty in October to possessing an unauthorised firearm and not keeping a firearm safely.

On August 30 last year, his daughter Cheyenne Macartney-Robins, 16, was accidentally shot when her sister Suava Macartney-Robins, 13, was attempting to retrieve the Anschutz 22-calibre rifle from the ceiling of the family’s home.

Robins had asked Suava to remove the rifle, given to him by his father, so he could show it to a friend.

As she made her way down the ladder from the ceiling, the rifle slipped from her grasp and she accidentally pulled the trigger as she attempted to grab the weapon, shooting her sister.

The bullet passed through Cheyenne’s right thigh and leg.

She was bleeding heavily and underwent surgery at the Albury Base Hospital.

Robins then asked his friend to get rid of the rifle and ammunition and they were thrown into the Murray River.

The father of three yesterday told Judge Blackmore that he had intended to get rid of the gun on the day of the shooting but could not find it.

“I was getting rid of it that day ... it was going away,” Robins said.

“It was a stupid mistake.”

Robins claimed the rifle was not loaded when he hid it in the ceiling.

Judge Blackmore said Robins had been on a good behaviour bond at the time and should not have had a weapon in any case.

“The magistrate was lenient in my view,” he said.

Robins has also been committed to stand trial in Victoria for dangerous and culpable driving causing death over a crash which killed a Wodonga man last year.