A Black Country-based male nurse who accessed an obscene image so shocking it made a female colleague "sick to her stomach" has been told that he can carry on practising.
Dennis Griffiths, 32, of Kingswinford, downloaded an image of an Alsatian dog in the process of mounting a naked man.
He thought the image was so funny he saved it as wallpaper on the hospital computer on the ward where he worked.
As a result, a female colleague was unexpectedly confronted by the image when she later logged on to the computer, and was deeply traumatised.
A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) disciplinary panel heard she was so shocked she eventually underwent six counselling sessions.
Mr Griffiths was working for the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust at Russells Hall Hospital when the incident occurred in July 2007.
He initially argued the image was neither obscene nor indecent. But he was found guilty on Thursday of a series of charges at the end of a four-day NMC hearing in Cardiff, south Wales.
Mr Griffiths had already been suspended and later sacked from his job with the trust. Despite an 18-month career change as a driving instructor, he is now back working as a registered nurse.
The NMC panel ruled that, despite his actions amounting to misconduct, no further action would be taken against him. The panel took the view that it had been a one-off incident which was very unlikely to be repeated.
Mr Griffiths had denied accessing an obscene and/or indecent image on a trust computer within the hospital ward where he worked. He also denied failing to take appropriate action to protect colleagues, visitors and patients being exposed to the image.
The NMC disciplinary panel found him guilty of both allegations on Thursday.
An allegation that he caused the image to be seen by a colleague named Sarah Worthington was also found to be proved. He had already admitted three linked charges that he switched off his computer without removing the image then failed to notify either his IT department or manager of it.
But an allegation that he showed the image to colleague Nicola Plant was found to be unproved.