A midwife and a health care worker who showed colleagues a child sex video walked free from court after a judge said they only did it to “demonstrate the evils of the world”.

Amudat Popoola, 50, played the six minute clip to horrified staff at Newham University Hospital on her mobile phone in April last year. It depicted a young girl aged two to three years old performing a

sex act on a man in his 20s or 30s.

The day before, Popoola had asked for the film be sent to her via messaging service WhatsApp after being shown it by health care assistant Yaodele Salami, 48.

Colleagues at the hospital in Glen Road, Plaistow, were so shocked by the footage that a student nurse immediately reported it to police who arrested the pair, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard on Monday.

In what he described as an “exceptional case”, Judge Martyn Zeidman QC told Popoola and Salami that they both held a “responsible, important position in a hospital” and “needed to show high standards of behaviour”.

He added: “It seems that once the image had been received you both sought to use it, not for sexual pleasure but to demonstrate the evils of the world in which we live.

“Your motive was very different from someone who just does it for sexual purposes.”

James Higbee, defending Salami, said she had been sent the video by a colleague at the hospital whose name has been passed on to police.

The fact that these offences were not committed for sexual gratification was not disputed by the prosecution.

Salami, of Ivyhouse Road, Dagenham, was handed a 12-month prison term, suspended for 12 months, for possessing, distributing and showing an indecent image of a child.

Popoola, of Dagenham Avenue, Dagenham, was handed a 14-month sentence for possessing and showing the same image, also suspended for 12 months.

Both will also have to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and face the end of their careers after pleading

guilty.