You may claim to be well versed in American law, but you're not very conversant with English Law.
There is no such thing as a misdemeanour or felony in English Law.
Any conviction recorded against an individual is serious, be it as a result of the finding of a magistrate summarily, the crown court on indictment or the offender having pleaded guilt.
Having spent time in Europe researching and writing on the comparative systems of Civil jurisdictions and Common Law jurisdictions such as the US and UK, I assure you I actually know a great deal more than your presumptive assessment gives me credit for. Your distinction is a matter of semantics, contrary to what you state, there is a distinction between felonies and misdemeanors under English criminal law... they just don't call them that…
anymore. Misdemeanors are now called
summary offences and are tried in Magistrate Courts. By definition a summary offence is a "petty crime"... I'll leave it to you to explain how a crime could be both "petty" and serious at the same time. The less serious nature of petty crimes/summary offences is underscored by the fact that they don't feature the right to be tried by a jury… and that the maximum penalty is either £5,000 or imprisonment of up to 6 months.
Juries are reserved for more serious crimes... what we here in the US call a felony (and what prior to 1967 was called a… wait for it...
felony, in the UK) is now called an
indictable offence. Indictable offences, to underscore how serious the charge is, can only be tried in Crown Courts, and require the state to first prove by a prima facie showing that there's enough evidence to hold a person over for trial, before the case can be pursued.
A sentence post conviction of a fine, community order or any other non-custodial sanction does not mean that the offence (not offense) was not serious; it means that there were a number of mitigating factors taken into consideration in sentencing.
Offence/Offense, to-may-to, to-mah-to... but I'm sure you're so desperate to "correct" me that yuh have to grasp at semantic straws... as you always do.
If the sanction is non-custodial... then by definition it's not a serious offense (offence, if it makes you happy). How often do individuals charged with serious offences just get off with just a fine? The fact that the charges are heard in a Magistrate's court indicates that the maximum penalty isn't severe... the maximum penalty for a summary offense as stated above is £5,000 or imprisonment of up to 6 months. So again... mitigating factors/circumstances may serve to reduce the punishment, but if the maximum punishment itself isn't severe, then the offense is not a serious, but a petty offense.