Johann Hari hounded me for years: all he gets is four months' unpaid holiday from the Independent. But the truth will come out

Andreas Whittam Smith: do you call this an 'inquiry'?

For months I have been waiting to be contacted by the "Inquiry", conducted by Andreas Whittam Smith for the Independent, into Johann Hari's professional misconduct. I thought the Indy would wish to speak to me for two reasons. First, as Deputy Editor of the New Statesman, I had worked closely with Johann and observed him in a number of situations – from investigations to expenses claims. Second, I was one of the victims of Johann Hari's most vicious attacks. He accused me of being an anti-Semitic bully on his website (and took it down after I wrote to him threatening legal action). On Wikipedia, in his guise as "David Rose" he frequently vandalised my entry, accused me of being a liar and tried to make out I was fired from my job at the Catholic Herald – a complete lie. I strongly suspect that Hari was also behind the (completely anonymous) edits of the entry that accused me of being an anti-Semite.

Two days ago I decided to take the initiative and contact Andreas Whittam Smith directly. I admire Whittam Smith, founder of The Independent, and volunteered to help his inquiry. He answered immediately: he had just handed in his inquiry documents to Chris Blackhurst, the new editor of the Independent. He regretted, he told me, the fact that I had been dragged into the row.

I regret it too – especially now that I find the Indy is ready to drop any pretensions to journalistic integrity and recycle Johann Hari next year. I have received no personal apology from Hari; nor have any of his other victims. I have received no direct apology from the Indy, which defends him. Hari's front page article in the Indy yesterday read like a J'Accuse rather than an apology: he defends his disgusting lies and libels by arguing that he was protecting his friends – Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. He elevates the defence of Left-wing hacks into a moral crusade that justifies publishing slurs against his critics. No newspaper in the world should print such nonsense – certainly no paper that claims to be liberal.

I have, however, received a great deal of support from those who, like me, were the targets of Hari's duplicitous and vicious cyber-attacks. One, a volunteer for a charity that took Hari to Africa, is ready to publish a devastating document of allegations against the journalist. Watch this space.