How to unlock my iPhone 5s without icloud to activate it?

Basically my cousin got a iPhone 5s for Christmas but 2 months later she smashed it so her mum bought her a bran new one. I lost my phone and didn't have one so I found it in the draw and I ask what she doing with it and she said I could have it and get it fixed at the apple store so yesterday I went to the apple store and he asked me to sign into my Apple ID but it wasn't the one he said it's a icloud account so I rang her and she gave me her Apple ID so I typed that in and that wasn't the one either and he said we can't do anything unless we have that I cloud address. But I didn't know why they wouldn't let me pay for a new one so I took it to a shop to get the smashed screen fixed but when I was setting the phone up (been reset in apple store) it said to activate this phone you must type this I cloud in to get on the phone. My cousins never had a icloud email so i don't know what to do have I wasted money fixing the screen?

She had to have an ID to set it up, if she doesn't remember the password she can reset it online. You have to use that, there's no way around it as its a security feature, and then you will set it up with your own apple ID once is cleared off there.