It's a very daft thing to have done, but money goes nowhere especially if you have 'friends' and neighbours with their hands open and you are good hearted. I don feel sorry for him, I assume he viewed it as a stroke of good luck and didn't think ahead. I think this only applies for 26 weeks though, I may be wrong about that, but they'll have a tough time of it regardless.
Zacs - it depends how many family you take with you, and the level of accommodation on your cruise.
You can spend £8,000 per passenger for a Caribbean cruise with P & 0, and that's just for a balcony cabin - if you have a suite, it's more. Take half a dozen family with you, and the same for Benidorm, with spending money for all, and yes, that's the money gone.
No, not sorry for him. The age he is alone (assuming he has been claiming) should tell anyone that he should have knowledge of how the benefit system works. No excuses.
He is an adult of some considerable age and one would imagine intelligence.
How could he think he would get away with spending 80K and still get 'free' money from the state?
Islay - I think your assumption that with age comes wisdom is invalid - you only have to spend some time on here to know that there are posters of considerable age who have managed to learn nothing useful whatsoever about the world and how it works!
As I understand it any big lottery winners are given financial advice by the lottery. If he chose to ignore this advice then he is not deserving off any sympathy.IMO.