You and/or he would likely receive an Inquiry PM prior....I can almost guarantee that one day I will get a call and he will ask me how to recover his account. This has happened before though not here. So if he loses access to his email he registered with and can't remember his password how would he go about getting his account back without someone playing middle man? I've not seen a way for someone without an active account to contact any staff.
Forgotten passwords, or family members/friends sharing computers is common. As mentioned earlier, we usually give the new member benefit of the doubt.
Worst case, email to the admin is still accessible, to bring it to our attention.