Once a thread is removed it is to be considered irrecoverable as it was physically purged from the system.
You should look into a "Boneyard" forum where you can move items to be "removed" so that if diciplenary actions is to be used you have evidence and a thread you can move back.
Also, 5x reached end of life this last year, no actual support can really be provided on it as well as the majority of us who respond all have 6.x series forums which have a differant codebase (even control panel) than 5.x so any support we could pull out of a hat would be aimed at best guesses.
