Activation screen

I'm in a pretty messed up situation.

A while back, when my mom got her iPhone 6, she decided to change her Apple-ID due to some complications with her email address. This proved to be even more tricky than thought at first. Ultimatively it led to deleting the email address (which meant the Apple-ID got deleted aswell).

I've now been given her old iPhone 5, but it was connected to her old Apple-ID. When I factory-reset the iPhone (there were a whole lot of contacts and pictures not to mention apps I wanted to get rid of) I got all the way to the activation screen. As I typed the password in, it declined. It was at that point I realized that the email and Apple-ID had been deleted. So I tried creating the same email-address and Apple-ID (created under same email) in order to see if that would pop open the activation screen. It didnt.

I'm out of options. I can't get on the old Apple-ID despite having created one under the same email address. The system considers it as brand new, but for some god forsaken reason it's still hooked up to the iPhone. What are my options here? I know the password of the previous Apple-ID and the email, yet due to it being deleted that information seems useless. Do I just call support or something else?