LDAP users and groups starting with #, & special characters are not returned in user picker fields

Summary

LDAP groups/users with a name starting with # are not shown in the user picker fields. 

The groups/users are visible in User Management. 

Environment

• JIRA 8.10 or latest

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create groups/users with #, & in Jira
2. The same groups/users are synced from LDAP and visible in Jira UI 
3. When searched in user pickers fields, the groups/users are not shown.

Expected Results

Return groups/users with names starting with #, &

Actual Results

No groups/users are returned/some results showed 

Workaround

Use groups/users with names not starting with #, &

OR

Search by the special character (# or &)