[Grammar] Mr Cummings would have had access [why not had?]

[Flogger]

Hello,

I have a question regarding the structure "would have had" in the below sentence! Why has not the author simply used "had access" as "Would have had" denotes improbability of the action while it seems the action was definitely done by Mr Cummings. I don't know if I've been clear on my problem or not! It's a bit hard to ask vague questions.

The Telegraph reported that Mr Cummings [STRIKE]would have had[/STRIKE] had access to the messages while he worked at No 10, with a source adding: "If you join the dots it looks like it’s coming from Dom."

Thanks in adavnce,

 

[5jj]

'... would have had ...' expresses the writer's certainty about the situation. '... had ...' presents the situation as a fact.

 

[jutfrank]

It's a distancing device. Using had access creates a sentence that is read as a statement of fact. Any statement of fact will usually need to have direct evidence that justifies its status as factual. However, the idea here is that there is no direct evidence, so the sentence in question is not a statement of fact, but rather a deduction (more specifically an assumption) about a past situation. We can assume that Mr Cummings had access because we assume that anybody working at No.10, at that particular point in time, and in that particular capacity, had access.

[cross-posted]