"I would not want my wife to undergo this procedure," the French doctor wrote in an email to a colleague in 2005. "And I don't think I'm alone in that."

The email from Dr Bernard Jacquetin - about a controversial pelvic mesh device he invented for implantation in women - drew gasps from the public gallery when it was read to the Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday, on the first day of a class action brought by more than 700 women against Johnson & Johnson.

Dr Jacquetin was part of a Johnson & Johnson transvaginal mesh evaulation team, the court was told, and his email was included in an internal company document.

Tony Bannon SC, acting for the women, told Justice Anna Katzmann that the subliminal message of the email was "those of us who were in the know".