UTF8 question on character_set_server

PapaLazarou

I have DataTables working correctly on my own local server where everything is in UTF8.

When I put my code on my shared hosting providers server it looks differently in the database. Because its saved as latin1.
But DataTables will show it correctly.

However when I do a "set NAMES utf8"
It looks correct in the database and stores correctly but DataTables refuses to show it.

The issue seems to be "character_set_server" which I cant set as Im not the admin of the shared server.
Is there anyway round this ?

SHARED HOSTS Settings:

| character_set_client     | utf8                                   |
| character_set_connection | utf8                                   |
| character_set_database   | utf8                                   |
| character_set_filesystem | binary                                 |
| character_set_results    | utf8                                   |
| character_set_server     | latin1                                 | 
| character_set_system     | utf8                                   |
| character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/             |