use Encode  qw( decode FB_CROAK );

my $s_utf8 = "\xCC\xE5";
print("utf8::valid = ", utf8::valid($s_utf8)?1:0,"\n");

my $s_chars = eval { decode('UTF-8', $s_utf8, FB_CROAK) };
print("valid decode = ", defined($s_chars)?1:0,"\n");

##</code><code>##

utf8::valid = 1
valid decode = 0