Java xml parse error: Special characters

I have this issue lingering for a while. I have an xml  which has special characters and I am trying to parse them and have serious problem. Experts please advice.

Here is the xml

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<user_data>
    <time_taken>ÀÀÀÀ</time_taken>  ///SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
</user_data>

Here is my servlet which parses:

protected ModelAndView handleRequestInternal(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception
      {
            request.setCharacterEncoding("UTF-8");

            int contentLength = request.getContentLength();
            if ( contentLength == -1 ) {
                  // Content length must be known.
                  throw new ServletException( "Content-Length must be specified" );
            }
            String contentType = request.getContentType();
            System.out.println("request.getContentType(): " +request.getContentType() );
            System.out.println("request.getContentLength(): " +request.getContentLength() );

            boolean contentTypeIsOkay = false;
            // Content-Type must be specified.
            if ( contentType != null ) {
                  // The type must be plain text.
                  if ( contentType.startsWith( "text/xml" ) ) {
                        // And it must be UTF-8 encoded (or unspecified, in which case
                        // we assume
                        // that it's either UTF-8 or ASCII).
                        if ( contentType.indexOf( "charset=" ) == -1 ) {
                              contentTypeIsOkay = true;
                        } else if ( contentType.indexOf( "charset=utf-8" ) != -1 ) {
                              contentTypeIsOkay = true;
                        }
                  }
            }
            if ( !contentTypeIsOkay ) {
                  throw new ServletException(
                  "Content-Type must be 'text/xml' with 'charset=utf-8' (or unspecified charset)" );
            }
            InputStream in = request.getInputStream();
            //      InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(request.getInputStream(), "UTF-8");
            String decoded = null;
            String pay = null;
            try {
                  byte[] payload = new byte[contentLength];
                  int offset = 0;
                  int len = contentLength;
                  int byteCount;
                  while ( offset < contentLength ) {
                        byteCount = in.read( payload, offset, len );
                        if ( byteCount == -1 ) {
                              throw new ServletException( "Client did not send " + contentLength + " bytes as expected" );
                        }
                        offset += byteCount;
                        len -= byteCount;
                  }
                  pay = new String( payload, "UTF-8" );
                  System.out.println("xml is : " +pay );

                  decoded = URLDecoder.decode(pay, "utf-8");
                  System.out.println("decoded : " +decoded );

            } finally {
                  if ( in != null ) {
                        in.close();
                  }
            }

            sun.io.ByteToCharConverter fromUnicode;
            String convertedStr = decoded;
            try {
                  fromUnicode = sun.io.ByteToCharConverter.getConverter("UTF-8");
                  fromUnicode.setSubstitutionMode(true);

                  char[] convertedChars;

                  convertedChars = fromUnicode.convertAll(convertedStr.getBytes());

                  convertedStr = new String(convertedChars);
                  System.out.println("convertedStr : " +convertedStr );
                  
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                  e.printStackTrace();
            }
            
            
            InputStream inputStream = request.getInputStream();

            System.out.println("request.getCharacterEncoding()  : " + request.getCharacterEncoding() );
            SAXBuilder builder = null;
        // Create an instance of the tester and test
        builder = new SAXBuilder();
       
     
        Document doc= builder.build(new java.io.ByteArrayInputStream(convertedStr.getBytes()));

//////ERROR : Illegal XML character:  &#x4;.
       
        Element user_data =doc.getRootElement();