xml parsing error for < character

Having used JTidy to produce an xml file, I then use a SAX based XML parser
on it and get the following exceptions:
'Whitespace required before attributes.' 
caused by the following line in a javascript function:    for (i=0;i<y;i++)
OR
'The content begining "<" is not legal markup.  Perhaps the "" (&#20;)
character should be a letter.'
caused by :  for ( i = 0; i < y; i++) 

Can anyone tell me why this is happening and if there is a configuration
setting that will change the way the XML parser 
treats the '<' sign.   Alternatively is there a way that I can tell JTidy
to simply strip out all the information between the 
<script> and </script> tags as it writes the xml file??

My thanks in advance for any assitance in this.

Cateen Quayle